The SUN HK

Usaping utangan, mas pinalawak pa ng Card HK

Posted on 24 October 2019 No comments

Ni George Manalansan

Image may contain: 13 people, people sitting

Tinuruan ang mga nagsanay na mag-impok para makaiwas sa utang

Nagkaroon ng mas malalim na pagtatalakay tungkol sa problema sa utangan ng mga migranteng manggagawa sa isinagawang financial literarcy workshop ng Card Hong Kong Foundation noong ika-20 ng Oktubre sa Philippine Overseas Labor Office sa Wanchai.

Ito ay matapos lumabas na sa 73 na dumalo sa pagsasanay, 28 lang o halos ikatlong bahagi ang may ipon. Ang ilan ay napagkakasya lang ang kinikita pero mayroon din na nababaon sa patong- patong na pagkakautang sa iba't ibang kadahilanan.

Batay sa kuwento ng mga kalahok ang madalas na ugat ng pagkakautang ay ang biglaang pangangailangan ng pamilya, pagiging iresponsable ng kabiyak na naiwan sa Pilipinas, pagpatol sa mga scam sa kagustuhang kumita ng malaki, pagtitiwala sa bagong kakilala, at marami pang iba.

Call us now!

Ayon kay Cecil Eduarte na trainor sa paksang “debt management,” hindi layon ng talakayan na husgahan ang mga nagkakautang kundi para magtulungan ang lahat sa paghanap ng solusyon sa problemang dulot ng pangungutang.

Tinalakay niya ang iba-ibang klase ng utang (para mapakita ang pagkakaiba ng “good debt” sa “bad debt”), paano i-compute ang interest o tubo sa utang, at kung sino lang sa mga miyembro ng pamilya ang dapat suportahan o sustentuhan.

Kasama sa mga nagsanay si Noemi C., 62, taga Quezon City at dumating sa Hong Kong noong 1996. Inilahad niya kung paano siya nabaon sa utang noon. Taong 1998 nang matangay ng isang illegal recruiter ang Php100,000 na ibinayad niya para makapagtrabaho sa Hong Kong ang kanyang asawa. Noong panahong iyon ay may pinapaaral siya sa high school at kolehiyo, at may isang anak na epileptic na binibilhan niya ng gamot. Ilang beses niyang na “re-loan” ang $40,000 niyang utang kaya inabot ng 2003 ang kanyang pagbabayad.

Call us!

Sa ngayon ay nakaahon na raw siya, ayon kay Noemi. Mayroon na siyang ipon, may pension pa.

Ang una niyang payo sa mga kapwa manggagawa ay ang maging responsible sa pagbabayad ng utang. Sa edad niya ay maari na siyang bumalik sa Pilipinas pero mabait daw ang kanyang amo kaya nanatili pa siya dito.

Si Catherine A. naman na taga Pasay City ay naloko daw ng isang “kaibigan” na nakilala lang niya sa Hong Kong. Hiniraman siya ng perang pampuhunan at pinangakuan na hahatian sa kita mula sa pagbebenta ng mga bag, sapatos at damit sa online, pero hindi siya binayaran at pati ang kanyang kapital ay tinangay. Sa kaka renew niya ng kanyang loan ay umabot ng apat na taon ang kanyang pagbabayad. Ngunit dahil sa mga natutunan niya sa mula sa Card ay mag-iingat na daw siya at hindi basta-basta magtitiwala lalo na pagdating sap era.

Katakot-takot na pahirap naman ang sinapit ni Airilyn R. ng Bicol, na apat na taon na sa Hong Kong. Wala daw siya talagang ipon dahil tatlo ang anak niyang sinusuportahan, at nalulong pa sa droga ang kanyang asawa.

“Sa una pa lang ay naloko na ako ng nagpasok sa akin sa trabaho. Ginamit niya pangalan ko sa pag lo loan tapos hindi ako binayaran,” ayon sa kanyang salaysay.

Bukod sa anak na patuloy niyang sinusuportahan, nag problema din si Ailyn kamakailan dahil biglang nagpakamatay ang kanyang kapatid, at siya ang gumastos sa pagpapalibing. Ang kanyang payo sa mga kapwa migrante, “huwag gumastos basta-basta para hindi mabaon sa utang”

Image may contain: 2 people, including Edna LolaAktibista Aquino

Card HK founder tells participants to use what they learned to get out of debts

Natuwa naman ang founder ng Card HK na si Edna Aquino sa positibong pagtanggap ng mga dumalo sa pagsasanay. Nangako siya na papataasin pa ang kalidad ng workshop para mas maging kapaki-pakinabang ito sa mga migranteng manggagawa.

Pinayuhan ni Aquino ang mga nabaon sa utang na gamitin ang mga natutunan sa workshop upang bumangon unti-unti.

Ang katatapos na pagsasanay ay siyang pinakahuli ng Card HK para sa taong 2019. Para sa mga workshop sa darating na taon, iminumungkahi sa mga interesado ang mag “like” sa Facebook page ng Card Hong Kong Foundation at abangan ang mga anunsiyo tungkol dito.

---

I-try mo ito, Kabayan: Kung interesado kang ma-contact ang mga advertiser namin dito, pindutin lang ang kanilang ad, at lalabas ang auto-dialer. Pindutin ulit upang tumawag. Hindi na kailangang pindutin ang mga numero.

CALL US! WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP

Filipino mom jailed nearly 7 years for heroin trafficking

Posted on 23 October 2019 No comments

By Vir B. Lumicao

Justice Joseph Yau ignored the defense's mitigation and appeal for leniency.

A 42-year-old Filipina resident has been sentenced to 6 years and 10 months in jail by a High Court judge for trafficking 138 grams of heroin just over a year ago.

Michelle A. Dabao, a former waitress, was jailed on Oct 23 by Judge Joseph Yau after she pleaded guilty earlier to a charge of drug trafficking.

Dabao was in tears as she glanced occasionally at her husband and other relatives in the gallery while Yau reviewed the background of her case.

Call us!

Dabao was said to have been born in 1977 and studied in the Philippines. She then worked as a waitress earning $13,000 a month. She is married and has a 17-year-old daughter who is attending a Hong Kong school.

Dabao was arrested during a Customs raid at 9:23am on Oct 17 last year on a unit that she rented in Man Fung Industrial Bldg in Chai Wan. Officers who barged into the unit saw Dabao holding an A4-sized document bag and a handbag with two cellphones. In the document bag were six resealable plastic bags containing a mixture with 138 grams of heroin hydrochloride.

Dabao told the officers she did not know the contents of the document bag she collected next to a rubbish bin at the instruction of a man named Pei Chai and for which she was paid $2,000.

Call us now!

The raiders searched the unit and found three empty document bags like to the one seized from Dabao, several resealable plastic bags, as well as $46.60 cash in her bag.

The prosecution said that, in a video recorded interview on Oct 18, Dabao estimated the value of the heroin seized from her at $117,344.

During mitigation, defense counsel Leslie Parry said Dabao was injured in a traffic accident in 2017 that kept her in hospital for four to five months due to a surgery in which metal braces where inserted in her legs.

Parry said his client lost her income due to her injury and the extreme pain it caused her. She did not want to bother her husband so she borrowed money from loan sharks.

Dabao learned to abuse dangerous drugs until she was introduced by unscrupulous acquaintances to trafficking for them to pay for the drugs she used and settle her debt to the loan sharks, the lawyer said.

The counsel asked for leniency, saying Dabao was very remorseful, and wished to reunite early with her husband and daughter.

Parry handed the judge three letters – one from Dabao’s husband, who said he perceived her as a spoilt child with a good heart but is a good mother, another from Dabao herself expressing her remorse, and, the third, from an association of Christian pastors who said she was remorseful and begged for leniency on her behalf.

But Justice Yau said all the mitigation pleas had no value.

---

CALL US! WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP

Jobless Pinoy fined $2,000 for taking $800 left on ATM

Posted on 22 October 2019 No comments

By Vir B. Lumicao

A jobless Filipino resident has been fined $2,000 following his admission in Eastern Court that he took $800 belonging to an ATM user who withdrew the cash but forgot to take it last December.

Cenon L. Bautista pleaded guilty on Tuesday, Oct 22, before Magistrate Bina Chainrai to one count of theft for taking the cash.

The prosecution said the offense took place on Dec 4 last year at a Bank of China ATM outlet on the ground floor of China Overseas Bldg on Hennessy Road.

Call us now!

Chow Tan-ying withdrew $800 from her account at 7:05am on Dec 4 then left hurriedly, forgetting to get her money. When she remembered a few minutes later and returned to get the money, it was gone.

The victim reported the incident to the police and a review of the bank’s CCTV footage showed Bautista was next in line to Chow. When Chow left, the defendant took the money from the dispenser and walked away.

Call us!

Bautista could not be immediately located by police. It was only upon his return from Manila on the evening of Oct 18 that he was intercepted and arrested at the Immigration area of the Hong Kong International Airport.

Call now!

In mitigation, the defense lawyer said his client, who has three daughters and two sons in the Philippines, came to Hong Kong in 1991 and used to have a job that earned him $18,000 a month. He lost the job just before he went home.

The lawyer also said Bautista is suffering from Stage 2 colon cancer and wanted to go home for good.

Bautista agreed to pay the victim $800 to be coursed through the court, his defense counsel told Chainrai. Part of the compensation would come from his police bail money.

Chainrai imposed a fine of $2,000, which Bautista said he would pay within a week.

---

CALL NOW!

CALL US NOW!

Call us!

Call now!

CALL US! WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP

OFWs ‘fear jobless future’ if sent home en masse

Posted on 20 October 2019 No comments

By Vir B. Lumicao

Rev Joram urges Filipino workers to unionize as their protection against evils of contractualization

Many Filipino migrant workers in Hong Kong are gripped by fear of mass repatriation if the current political crisis gets worse because there are no jobs waiting for them at home, according to a militant community leader.

Eman Villanueva, chairman of Bayan Hong Kong and Macau and vice chairman of Filipino Migrant Workers Union, said OFWs also worry about losing their employment if their employers lose their jobs or move to other countries.

Call us now!

He spoke at the FMWU’s 21st anniversary event on Sunday, Oct 20, on Chater Road.

The FMWU event began at 9:30am with a holy mass offered by Rev Joram Calimutan and attended by more than 100 Filipino workers. The priest congratulated the workers union for continuing to fight for the domestic workers’ rights.

Fr Joram cited the importance of unionism as he blasted job contractualization that President Duterte has failed to stamp out despite his promise in 2016. He said the “endo” or end of contract policy is the reason why Filipino workers continue to work abroad.

Villanueva says repatriation fear is genuine.

Villanueva said there is genuine reason to worry because the Duterte administration has not fulfilled its promises to improve the economy and create jobs at home.

“Sa ating mga Pilipino sa labas ng bansa, totoong totoo ang sinasasabi ngayon na sa loob ng nakaraang tatlong taon, wala namang tunay na pagbabagong naganap, lumala pa,” Villanueva said.

“Kasi ngayon sa nagaganap sa Hong Kong, napakarami kong naririnig na mga kababayan natin, nangangamba na baka mapauwi sa Pilipinas…nangangamba na baka dahil sa kaguluhan sa Hong Kong, mawalan ng trabaho at mapuwersa tayong umuwi sa Pilipinas.”

Villanueva said it doesn’t matter whether one is pro or anti-Duterte. “Alam natin sa puso at isip natin na pag nawalan tayo ng trabaho rito at napilitang umuwi sa Pilipinas, nanga ang buo nating pamilya,” Villanueva said.

Call us!

That goes to show no genuine change had taken place in the Philippines because, if there was, no Filipino worker would worry about losing her job in Hong Kong, he said.

“Mangangamba ka bang magkaroon ng mass repatriation kapag lumala ang krisis dito, kung alam mong pagdating sa Pilipinas meron kang kabuhayan, meron kang trabaho, at meron kang mataas na sahod? Eh, baka mas marami pang mag-volunteer na umuwi.”

Call now!

In fact, from 5,000 OFWs leaving the country daily previously, the outflow has increased to 6,000, Villanueva said.

Earlier in October, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said he was closely monitoring the Hong Kong crisis and did not rule out repatriating the more than 200,000 OFWs here.

The government would implement its voluntary repatriation policy if there was a military crackdown on Hong Kong protesters, he told Manila media. He would not discount mandatory or forced repatriation if the peace and order situation worsened, he said.

The event featured various presentations, including this number from FMWU artists

Rev Joram cited one evil offshoot of contractualization a female worker in Southern Luzon revealed to him years ago. When her work contract was about to end, the manager called her into his office and asked pointblank: “Lie down or lay off?”

He said there had been many such reports of indecent proposals as job contractualization continued with firms reviewing contracts every five months to fire or extend workers. The priest said this is against the Labor Code, which states an employee has the right to be made regular after six months of probation.

Worse, he said, a new bill proposing the probationary period be made two years is in the works, “which means contractualization forever”. This will only drive more fathers and mothers to leave their families to work overseas, the priest said.

This is why unionism is necessary for the workers’ survival, he said. Despite the government’s “no union, no strike” policy, workers must continue to unionize because it is their life, otherwise their option would be “lie down or lay off”.

Also addressing the event was FMWU chair Bing Yungco and leaders of various OFW organizations.

The half-day celebration featured cultural presentations and dances by members of FMWU’s four chapters, friends and supporters. A raffle draw of cash and gift prizes capped the event. .

---

CALL NOW!