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MANILA, Philippines—The relatives of a Filipino domestic helper said to have died of suffocation in Beirut, Lebanon, suspect foul play and have sought the help of the Philippine Embassy to have the death investigated.
Norma Tobiagon Dulnuan was reported to have died of suffocation on January 4 by her employer Hamid Cairouz Wadin, a resident of Naim Street in Ain El Remaneh, a suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut, according to the overseas Filipino workers group Migrante International which is helping Dulnuan’s relatives.
Flora Belinan, chair of Migrante-Metro Baguio, said a co-worker relayed news of Dulnuan’s death to her sister Angelina Lupae, who works in Hong Kong.
Lupae contacted her family in Kiangan, Ifugao to relay the bad news. Another sister, Daisy Belingon, called the employer, who confirmed the maid’s death.
In an email sent Tuesday by Migrante to Philippine Embassy charge d’affaires Mariano Dumia and labor attaché Glenda Manalo in Beirut, Belinan said the employer assured Belingon that Dulnuan’s remains would be sent back to the Philippines very soon and that he would also give cash assistance for her burial.
A cousin of Dulnuan’s later called the employer in Beirut again and the employer reportedly told the family not to seek help anymore from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration because he would work out the repatriation of the deceased maid’s remains.
"With the statement of the employer, the family had suspicions of foul play, hence, they are requesting for an autopsy/medical report and police report,” Belinan said.
Dulnuan’s family also sought the embassy’s help in claiming death and other benefits as well as in the shipment of the deceased maid’s personal effects.
Since July 2006, the Philippines maintains an OFW deployment ban to Lebanon due to the security situation and increasing labor-related problems involving Filipino workers there.
Despite the ban, the Lebanese honorary consul in Manila said more than 45,000 OFWs, mostly maids, managed to slip into the Eastern Mediterranean country in the next years.
News reports reaching the Philippines about Filipino maids in Lebanon often refer to dozens of them running away from cruel employers and a few committing alleged suicides.
Last week, 85 Filipino mostly runaway maids were repatriated by the OWWA to the Philippines.
