A young Boholano engineer was killed in a Qatar landslide, his death a virtual test to the resurrection of the widely-heralded program OFW Action Line which endeared Gov. Edgar Chatto to the migrant workers during his Congress days. The corpse of Ill-fated 32-year-old geodetic engineer Hilario Cellero Fudalan had been frozen inside the morgue of a hospital since his death in a jobsite landslide in Doha, Qatar last August 29, but not until the governor's line for OFWs moved. Grieving and seemingly hopeless for the immediate return of his son's dead body to Tangnan, Panglao, the OFW's father, Victor, turned to Chatto's OFW Action Line program. The program, which already assisted countless OFWs in distress and critical conditions during Chatto's nine-year congressional stint, has a component OFW desk which he has now institutionalized in the provincial government under the Bohol Employment and Placement Office (BEPO).

The governor revived the other OFW Action Line component, its slots on DYRD and DYTR which retain the title of the program itself and are heard worldwide via Internet on their new Wednesday airtime. As soon as the program resumed on air, Fudalan's father sought the governor's help thru the OFW desk at capitol for the repatriation of his son's remains. The loved ones of the unfortunate OFW also asked assistance to facilitate the compensation and benefits due the dead overseas worker. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), thru the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), just released the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 10022 or the amended Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995. The law requires the recruitment agencies to pay the premium of the insurance coverage for the OFW which amounts to $15,000 for accidental death.

Fudalan's violent death by landslide was not reported by his employer to the Philippine Consulate in Qatar until his cousin, Bernadeth Ranario who has married an Arabian, informed his family back home. Chatto's OFW desk officer, Reinerio Augusto Real, swiftly networked with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) for the dead worker's transport home as earliest possible. The cold, lifeless OFW was finally repatriated and scheduled to arrive in Bohol last Wednesday, September 8. In another case testing the revival of the OFW Action Line, the governor himself personally asked Australian Ambassador Rod Smith for the speedy process of the papers for the travel abroad of the loved ones of Boholana Lorenza Rabuya Jabines who succumbed to a fatal stroke in Brisbane, Australia. In one more but distinct case, Chatto's OFW affairs unit assisted an OFW who wished for the scholarship or study assistance to his dependents thru the OWWA. Reaching out to and gaining feedbacks from more Boholano migrant workers worldwide, the Chatto administration launched the ofwaline_bohol@yahoo.com. at the time it revived the OFW Action Line broadcast. From Saudi Arabia, OFW Elias Bonite e-mailed his commendation of the governor's concern for the Boholano migrant workers. Experience prodded him to suggest additional approaches that could be done or facilitated by the provincial for the welfare of the migrant workers, their families and dependents.

OFW DESKS IN TOWNS

Chatto urged in his joint meeting with he leagues of mayors and vice mayors at People's Mansion for the establishment of OFW desks in their respective towns. These desks can facilitate the concerns of the OFWs and their families in their respective localities for action by the provincial government or intercession by the latter for response by concerned national agencies. A report to the governor on a regional forum on migration and development said that most of the LGUs have weak, if no existent at all---migration data gathering system. The creation of OFW desk in each municipality will pursue the intents of an agreement which will soon be inked between the province and OWWA, which will also present OFW medical and educational assistance packages on the occasion. Government welfare programs for the dependents of the OFWs have been made more responsive as cases of migrant workers in forced suffering and critical conditions, apart from more perilous dangers by the nature of their jobs, have kept piling up. Another case raised to the governor's OFW Action Line involves a mariner from Maribojoc who has been hostaged, together with 19 other Filipino crewmen, by the pirates in the notorious seas off Somali. Chatto has his OFW desk also maintaining lines with the DFA and OWWA for the urgent return of a Loonanon woman working as a beautician of a cruel employer in Doha, Qatar, exactly the Arab land where OFW Fudalan died. (Ven rebo Arigo)