OFWs leave the country to work in a foreign land with the intention to earn as much as double or triple the amount being earned in working here in the Philippines. But sad to say, not all OFWs get to enjoy the high salaries they were dreaming of, rather, they become overworked yet underpaid.
The case of Isidro P. Lacupanto, an OFW working as a family driver in Saudi Arabia was among those sad stories which mirrors reality of an OFW’s life.
His story was shared by a netizen named Azumi Chan who sympathized with Tatay Isidro with the hard experiences that he had while working abroad.
According to Chan’s post, as a family driver, often times, Tatay Isidro would drive for his boss until 3AM. With just 3 hours of sleep, Tatay Isidro needs to wake-up by 6am to drive his employers to work and their kids to school.
Overworked with less time to rest, the OFW tolerated all the sacrifices that he has to make for 2 years to be able to support his family. When the most awaited moment came, when his contract ended, he expected that he can already go home to the Philippines but unfortunately, his employers did not let him go. Instead, he was told to extend his contract for another year, which Tatay Isidro strongly refused.
His employers then offered that they will let him go provided he’ll work for them for free on the next month so he will have enough money to purchase his own ticket, which Tatay Isidro accepted. However, surprisingly, before the month ended, the cops arrived and arrested him for uncertain reasons and put him into jail for 21 days.
When he was released from police custody, the poor OFW went back to his employer’s house to get his other belongings but they won’t let him in. That’s what prompted Tatay Isidro to seek assistance from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) but when he went to their office and saw that there were a lot of people lined up, he then opted to seek help from his “kababayans” instead.
He went to a mall in Riyadh and asked for any amount from every Filipino that he gets to meet while expressing his desire to go home to his family. The money which he can collect will be used to purchase his plane ticket.
Azumi Chan shared this story on Facebook hoping someone might be able to extend his help to Tatay Isidro in his desire to go back to his homeland, the Philippines.
See the video :
Posted by Azumi Chan on Sunday, August 6, 2017
