The time to work together is now

On 8 March 1995, as editorial page editor of The Evening Paper, I wrote a series of editorials on the case of Flor Contemplacion, the Filipina OFW sentenced to death in Singapore for killing a fellow OFW, Delia Maga. This is one of those editorials. The sentence had been carried out by then, and the nation was clearly in mourning.

Hundreds of pages of editorial copy and scores of broadcast hours were spent on the issue of OFWs, provoked by the Flor Contemplacion case. More than a decade after, OFWs continue to die in many parts of the world.

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Editorial, The Evening Paper
Issue of 20 March 1995

Flor Contemplacion came home over the weekend--in a box. She could not have imagined it would ever come to that. When she left the Philippines for Singapore, it must have been, without a doubt, in anticipation of a better life for her children. Nobody could have foreseen that life excluding her.

But such is now fait accompli. And despite the admirable outpouring of public outrage, of national indignation, even of threats from violence-prone organizations, it is no longer Flor Contemplacion that we must think of now.

Rather, it is all the living Flors in all the other countries of the world, bound by contracts to lives of forced servitude to foreigners or by court sentences to years of imprisonment under foreign jailers.

Last week, in an earlier piece on this page, we talked about the need to help Flor's family triumph over the economic pressures that caused her to decide to work as a domestic helper overseas. And they must do so with self-reliance, hard work, pride, and dignity.

On Friday afternoon, as Flor's body was prepared for its flight home, we prayed for her soul, and for ours, too. We asked questions about the support systems in place in our embassies abroad to find out their weaknesses.

This week, let us set out on the path to ideas and proposals to help our OFWs abroad. Let these ideas and proposals be workable ones with very real chances of succeeding. Infuse them with adequate controls and mechanisms to optimize efficiency at the least cost and, given our penchant for bloated bureaucracies, with very lean staffing.

Then, write and explain them to us. We will devote a special section within our editorial pages for the exchange of good, workable ideas. And we will refer them to people and agencies that can make them happen. The bottom line now is national unity and cooperation. Where one part of the body politic or government machinery is weak, all citizens must help, augment, support.

The time for criticism, like the time for weeping, is over. The time to unite, help each other, and work together is now. Politicking while our countrymen abroad die is divisive and counter-productive. Leaving everything to government is contrary to the principle of people empowerment: It is Singapore's way, not ours.

Unless we put our collective heads together as a nation, Filipino OCWs--especially domestic helpers, entertainers, and laborers--may remain the world's most abused workforce. It is not in our national or individual interests to let this situation continue.

-- NBT