The plight of the Bagong Bayani

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

It took no less than a personal appeal from the President of the Philippines to the Emir of Kuwait to stop the execution of 34-year-old school-teacher-turned-domestic-helper, Marilou Ranario, after she was convicted of killing her employer who had allegedly maltreated and abused her.

The government calls them the “Bagong Bayani,” ostensibly because of the sacrifices they and their families endure as they toil in foreign lands, but the real reason for the romanticized moniker would be their remittances, amounting to billions of dollars every year, that has basically been instrumental in propping up the country's flagging economy.

Despite the risk of illegal recruiters, abusive employers, withheld wages, loneliness, emotional distress, and broken families, millions of our countrymen continue to work, or dream of working as Overseas Filipino Workers, with a significant percentage shunning their college degrees and accepting menial jobs as domestic helpers, all because they believe they can earn more in a foreign land than they ever could in their own country.

President Arroyo's act of benevolence in pleading for the life of a Filipina, if it is to become more than just a publicity stunt aimed at appeasing the significant and anxious OFW population of this country, whose worries are being compounded by the negative effect of the strengthening Peso on their incomes, has to be followed up with concrete plans and measures that will benefit the people we conveniently call the Bagong Bayani.

First and foremost would be providing them with real opportunities here at home so they don't have to resort to going abroad. If that can't be helped, then this country that is now being built on the sweat of its OFW population must work to provide additional protection from unscrupulous recruiters and abusive employees, as well as provide adequate support for the millions who are already abroad, aside from doing the best it can to minimize the effect of the strengthening peso on OFW's and their families.*