For 12 Filipino workers, this kind of evil doing came in the form of an illegal recruiter named Yolanda Umbay Alfante, a resident of Pasay City. She promised these 12 workers a job in Saipan and Tinian as different made up jobs such as farmers or as workers. To their dismay, they were informed that they are going to work at a certain restaurant named Kulits which was already closed by the CNMI authorities for accepting workers without a legal working permit even before the 12 workers got there.

Alfante reportedly asked for US$3,000 from each of the 12 workers in order to get hired. Since they were only issued tourist visas, they have to return to the Philippines after 30 days. But since they were victims of illegal recruitment, the CNMI Department of Labor allowed them to stay longer for the reason they only stated as “simple humanitarian reason”

Seven of the 12 workers were already sent home a couple of months ago but these 3, namely Darwin A. Viloria, 37, of Munoz, Nueva Ecija; Noelito Jumawan, 37, of Sariaya, Quezon; and Romeo Tesorero, 44, of Barangay Holy Spirit, Quezon City will be repatriated soon.

All of them are planning to sue the said illegal recruiter and hope that no more Filipinos fall into their scam

It is such a shame that in the current state of the Philippines where even the fresh graduates of at par universities find it hard to get a job that there are some people that do not have consideration for others and still have the conscience to scam other people for huge amounts of money. No matter how troubled or deep in debt a person may be, it does not give him the right to do any criminal act especially those involving scams that asks for a large amount of money.

It is also quite sad that this news only goes to show that more and more Filipinos want to find a job outside of the country. They are mostly those who have families depending on them. They do not like to be away from their loved ones but in the current economic state, it leaves them no choice.

But somehow, in this tragic story, when the workers got home, they still managed to smile. This is because at least nothing happened to them and when they got home, they still have their families.

Image Credit: Batangbaler

My sister finished her studies in University of the Philippines which hones most of the activists in the Philippines. She taught me some of the concepts that she learned during her college days there. She taught me to make my voice heard if I know that I was right. She taught me that once I have accomplished everything that I am set out to do, the only thing that will be left is my dignity. Therefore, I must not lose my dignity in the process of doing what I am set out to do and in reaching my goals. These are just two of the many concepts she taught me and I still hold on to these until now.

These are hard times for the Philippines because there are many reporters being abducted who never get to return home. The police keep on telling the family members of the abducted that they are still conducting an investigation but then again, they have been conducting one for nearly 5 years now and even longer for some cases. These abducted reporters vanished into thin air with no evidence whatsoever. They have been abducted in different times, in different places with different scenarios but they are the same in one aspect. They have all tried to publish something that is against the government.

Bombings can easily be seen as an act of terrorism. But sometimes, if no one listens to you and you know that you need to be heard, you tend to do whatever you deem to be necessary. You lose all morals and do what you think is right because if you won’t do it, who will? In this country where going against the government is punishable by death, what do you really have?

The client was sexually abused by his parter who forcefully put the canister in his anus and then the client was raped. The doctors and the medical team of the hospital found this to be very unusual so they decided to video tape the whole surgery without the consent of the patient. As you may all know, they also decided to post the video on youtube also without the consent of the client. It is as if they automatically assume that the client would already that the patient would agree to the idea because after all, he’s gay.

All patients have the right to full disclosure from the moment that they make any interaction to any member of the medical team. It is already the responsibility of that member to keep what he knows to himself. This is the basic rule in any medical science. No matter what your beliefs are, once you pledge into your line of work, you will put them aside. This is because you should be open minded enough to know that equality must rule every decision that you make. You should know that all people have the same rights. You cannot force everybody to agree with what you believe in and it is wrong to do so because that is the reason why everybody has his or her own free will. Free will is about being satisfied with what you know and being happy about it no matter how different they may be from anybody else.

Due to this point that you just have to wonder, would they have done the same thing if the patient was a woman? Would they even think about video taping it? My strong guess is that the answer is no because they would think that if that happened to their sister or their mother, they would not want anybody video taping it. But, they forgot one major point. It is quite impossible that none of them have even at least one gay friend. What if that happened to him? All it takes is just one person to step up and say that probably, what they are doing is inhumane, just one person to say that what they are doing is wrong. But sadly none of them thought of that because they immediately assumed that the patient would agree to the idea because he was gay.

There are many intelligent technological advances in the world and yet there are people stupid enough to discriminate others.

People here are so gullible. They believe everything that they hear and see on television that they seem to forget to think at all. I mean, there has to be standards on how you can say that a rice sack is hoarded. Before they made the law, they should have dictated those standards early on. What kind of law would that be If they cannot distinguish the legal with the illegal?

If this continues on, more rice producing cities will run out of business because of their lack of ability to think ahead of time and anticipate what can happen and the different scenarios that may play out in the end. Lawmakers should be able to think that. But then again, we are talking about lawmakers that have been appointed into position because of who they know and not so much on what they know. In this country, it is all about the people you know that has the power. It’s about clinging and sucking up to them.