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ILOILO CITY, Philippines?Seventeen Ilonggos who worked illegally for a palm oil plantation in Malaysia returned home Thursday after months of allegedly intolerable working and living conditions.
The male workers, mostly farmers from the towns of Calinog, Janiuay and Banate in Iloilo and Tapaz town in Capiz, arrived around 6 p.m. Thursday from Zamboanga City where they had been stranded for two weeks since they arrived from Malaysia on August 28.
"We are happy that we are together again with our families after our intolerable ordeal," Vany Babiera said on Friday during a press conference organized by the Gabriela Women's Party and Migrante-International, which helped the victims and their families.
The victims were recruited late last year by a certain Felix Castronuevo to work at the Timor Enterprises in Sabah, Malaysia. They were promised a minimum monthly salary of MYR700 (around P10,000) with free board and lodging.
They were part of a group of 22 workers who arrived in batches at the plantation starting in January without working visas as they entered Malaysia as tourists.
But Babiera said they were only given from MYR300-400 (P4,000 to P5,500). From this amount, the company also deducted expenses for the processing of their passports, for food and electricity and for the use of tools in the plantation.
"Nothing was left to us. We went there to be able to send money for our families here but we ended up asking money from them to survive," said Babiera, breaking in tears.
The workers said they worked from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily with no rest day and that they were not allowed to take a leave without medical certification.
On August 17, their water supply was cut off and they had to draw drinking and bathing water from a pond.
"Many of us got sick and lost a lot of weight because we ate nothing but dried fish and eggs and our water was contaminated," said John Casiple who went home ahead of the 17 because his family was able to send money.
Lucy Francisco, regional coordinator of Gabriela, said they sought the help of their partner non-government organizations in Malaysia after the families of the victims reported the victims' situation.
The families and the organizations also called the attention of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine embassy in Malaysia.
The Timor Enterprises allowed the workers to go home after the Malaysian police inspected the plantation and brought the workers to the police station, according to Francisco.
While the company shouldered the workers' boat trip fare to Zamboanga, the victims said they were not given food allowance and had nothing to eat during their trip. When they arrived in Zamboanga, they stayed at the shelter house of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The DSWD in Zamboanga also shouldered their trip to Iloilo.
The victims said many Filipinos were still left in the plantation but they could not communicate with them because they were housed in different areas.
