The Oriental Negros Sanggunian is urging President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to direct the Department of Foreign Affairs and other government agencies, to look into the status of at least 38 Overseas Filipino Workers in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, who were reportedly barred from going home and whose salaries were withheld.

In a resolution authored by Board Member Melimore Saycon, the provincial council noted that the three-year contracts of the 35 nurses and three male maintenance workers with the King Fahed Central Hospital in Jizan, Saudi Arabia already expired on October 23, 2005, but they were not allowed to end their employment.

Five of the nurses and the three male maintenance workers are from Oriental Negros and the rest are from different provinces of the Visayas.

They were hired by the United Medical group, that has an office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

"Their problem now, is that, in spite of their completed contract with the agency, they are not permitted to go home since there is no replacement for them," the resolution passed last Thursday stated.

The resolution also claimed that since January, the employees have not been given their salaries.

The SP said it learned of the plight of these OFWs because of the letter of a certain Gino Borromeo, dated March 11, 2066 addressed to Saycon, seeking assistance for his wife and her OFW companions.

Borromeo, of Bantayan, Dumaguete City is the husband of Josefa, one of the nurses.

Saycon who talked to Josefa through cellular phone last week, quoted her as saying, that four other hospital workers escaped last January, after which their salaries were withheld.

He did not say whether those who escaped were OFWs.

Subsequent efforts to get in touch with Josefa, Saycon said, were not successful, because she can no longer be contacted through her cellphone.

"Their cellphones might have been confiscated by their employers after learning that one of the OFWS was able to get in touch with others from the Philippines," Saycon said.

Sayson said that the government, through the DFA, Department of Labor and Employment, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration must investigate the matter with dispatch.

The resolution also said that the state should uphold the dignity of its citizens whether in the country or overseas and provide adequate and timely social, economic and legal services to Filipino migrant workers.*RA

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