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MANILA, Philippines—Evelyn Milo, 24, a saleslady in Abu Dhabi, came home in a box 14 days after she “jumped off” a building August 9, making her the eight Filipino worker to have “committed suicide” in the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates since January.
Her recruitment agency, Bright International Manpower, phoned her kin in the Philippines August 9, informing them about her death.
But did she really take her own life? Milo’s family doesn’t think so.
Milo’s remains arrived in Manila on August 19. Anita Milo-Macalintal, Milo's aunt who raised her, said Milo’s body bore strangulation marks on her neck, and stab wounds on her chest and legs.
"Her mouth seemed punched in and her genitalia were swollen," Macalintal said.
Senate Majority Leader Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan has called on the Department of Foreign Affairs “to determine whether there was foul play” in Milo’s death.
"Our authorities need to intervene immediately and ensure that this is not another case of foul play against our OFWs,” Pangilinan said Wednesday.
Her family is crying for justice.
"We want justice,” Milo's mother Thelma said, wailing.
She said the Bright International Manpower did not help them. “The agency simply gave us P300 and told us to fetch her body at the airport," Thelma said in Filipino.
Senate President Manuel Villar, who shouldered Milo's burial expenses, echoed the family's call for justice.
"Now that we have repatriated the body and will soon have it buried, what happens to
justice? We have not reached that and we admit that our capacity is still not enough but we cannot stop. Many of our countrymen are really short-changed and need justice," he said.
Villar said he was just waiting for the result of the autopsy conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation.
“It is disheartening, not to say sickening, how not a few hardworking Filipinos overseas meet this kind of fate, and that Philippine officials can only step in for them when, evidently, it is too late,” Pangilinan said.
Milo’s body is set to be buried on Saturday at the Makati South Cemetery.
