Foulness August 10, 2006

EXECUTIVE Secretary Eduardo Ermita exudes confidence. "If they think they want to bring us to court again, we are prepared for them." That was what he said in defiance of the Senate summons for several government officials, chief of them from the labor agencies, to appear before the Senate to explain what they were doing with money of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Al Francis Bichara, the Philippine ambassador to Lebanon, had complained a couple of weeks ago that he was powerless to aid the fleeing overseas Filipino workers because he had no money. Which prompted everyone, including the Senate, to echo the question that rose from the mouth of Fr. Agustin Advincula, the Filipino priest in Beirut: Where have all the OFW billions gone?

So far we have heard about Father Advincula doing everything in his power to get relief goods from the Red Cross and other relief agencies to feed the horde that has flocked at his door. So far we have heard about a Greek tycoon who is so thankful to Filipinos for having helped him build a fortune in shipping he wants to help them any way he can. So far we have heard about the OFWs themselves, mostly women, mostly maids, by dint of luck and daring, escaping from their employers who refused to let them go, climbing down floors and climbing up walls, hiding in ditches and hitching rides till they found their way to safety.

So far, all we've heard from government is that it sent $150,000 to our embassy in Lebanon. And that was four days after Bichara complained that credit was good but he needed cash. Cash might not move mountains, it might not even move hearts, but it moved butts. Which brings us back to the question: Where have all the OFW billions gone?

Ermita exudes reasonability. He had asked the Senate to defer the hearing on the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) fund, he said, because the officials the Senate wanted to question were busy with the relief effort.

Like how? How many people do you need to carry out the relief effort? What can you do in the coffee shops of hotel lobbies in Metro Manila to carry out the relief effort in Lebanon? I'll buy Ermita's proposition if we actually see Labor Secretary Arturo Brion, Owwa Administrator Marianito Roque, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya, Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr., Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz and Palace Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor winding through the rubble of Hezbollah looking for OFWs to rescue, while bombs fall all around them and bullets zip by their sides. While at this, I'll buy Ermita's proposition if the entire Cabinet, three-fourths of the House of Representatives and their boss in Malacañang -- the one who did not win the election -- were shipped off to Lebanon toconduct the operations there. They would truly be carrying out a relief effort: they would be giving monumental relief to their countrymen, at home or abroad.

In fact, until Bichara complained of not getting any money, until Father Advincula asked where the OFW billions were, and until the Senate echoed his cry, all we saw of the relief effort being frantically mounted by these same government officials came in the form of the advice: "Go hitch a ride" and "Pack up and go." You'd think the OFWs who stood to be turned into a permanent feature of the wasted land hadn't thought of it.

A Senate hearing, in fact, is the only guarantee government officials would lift their asses to rescue the people whose toil is rescuing their country. A Senate hearing is the only guarantee the money the OFWs raised with their blood, sweat and tears -- they pay a fortune in fees -- will go to them in their hour of need and not to Pidal in his hour of greed.

In the end, Executive Secretary Ermita exudes neither confidence nor reasonability, he merely exudes foulness. At the very least that is so because he owes the OFWs an explanation for where their money went. We do know where part of it went: P530 million of it in Medicare funds meant solely for OFWs went to PhilHealth to campaign for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the last elections. That is so notwithstanding PhilHealth's repeatedclaims they got the checks only after the elections. Francisco Duque's letter to Arroyo saying that the transfer "will bear significantly on 2004 elections," Arroyo's executive order transferring the funds, and the labor department's approval, all done before the elections, supply the motive, opportunity and means for the crime.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there is this theft (there is no other word for it), there will be more. Who cares if Owwa officials recite like a mantra that the OFW billions are intact? Intact for whom? It can't come as a comfort to a depositor that his money is in the bank but he can't touch it -- ever. Government officials continue to snub the Senate, and the OFWs may safely assume that their billions have been stolen fromthem. And rage, rage, against the dying of this light.

At the very most, what is Ermita saying? That Bishop Antonio Tobias is not above the law and may be punished for giving refuge to rebels, but Arroyo is and may be rewarded for giving sanctuary to rogues and blackguards? Didn't Arroyo just say in her State of the Nation Address that the witnesses to today's killings should step forward so that she could stop the runaway mayhem, which is the one thing -- and not Charter change -- that's truly runaway in this country? Surely, my dear Madam and Sir, you know that there are witnesses aplenty to some of the most heinous crimes ever committed in this country and that they are hiding behind the curtains of Malacañang or indeed under your beds?

Frankly, I don't know why the citizens, the OFWs at the forefront of them, shouldn't fight back. Malacañang won't account for your money? Then don't pay your fees. I really hope Malacañang would summon me for advocating that. I won't appear.

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