Barrio Fiesta London 2009.. Lampton Park

137 FILIPINOS STRANDED IN DUBAI

137 Filipino bus drivers have been left stranded in Dubai.

The report from the Blas F. Ople Policy Center coincides with the visait of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the United Arab Emirates which was moved forward the other day after protesters forced the cancellation of the ASEAN Summit in Pattaya, Thailand.

The accompanying pictures were sent to this writer by Dubai-based Filipino journalist Ares Gutierrez.

Here’s the full report from the Blas F. Ople Policy Center which is headed by former labor undersecretary Susan Ople:

Filipino Dubai Community Aids Stranded Drivers;
Ople Center Urges Action VS Recruitment Agency

In keeping with the spirit of Lent, the “bayanihan” spirit was alive and well in Dubai as Filipinos shared canned goods, water, toiletries, and other food items to help 137 bus drivers stranded and looking for jobs after being deployed there by a licensed recruitment agency.

The stranded drivers were overwhelmed by the show of hospitality and generosity by Filipino community leaders who traveled in a convoy on Good Friday and Black Saturday. According to Ares Gutierrez, sub-editor of XPRESS, the Dubai-based paper that broke the story about the stranded bus drivers, most of the victims were confused as to what they should do next.

One of the drivers, Claro Oliver of Rizal province, contacted the Blas F. Ople Policy Center yesterday for help in pursuing justice against their recruiter, CYM International Services, a licensed recruitment agency. The agency promised the Filipino drivers good-paying jobs at Dubai’s government transport agency known as Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). Some of the drivers, some of who quit their local jobs despite years of service, have been waiting to be hired by RTA since January of this year. Desperate for food and cash, the stranded drives have resorted to scavenging a dumpsite for scrap food.

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople, who heads the Blas F. Ople Center, urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to immediately investigate and if possible, suspend the said agency and its counterpart in Dubai, Al Toomoh Technical Services. “The sheer number of victims involved constitutes an act of economic sabotage by this licensed agency. We urge immediate action and for the owners of the agency to be barred from leaving the country.”

The bus drivers, nearly half of who hail from the province of Bulacan, complained to the Ople Center that their passports were being held by the foreign counterpart of their local agency in Dubai. This prevents them from applying for new jobs. Majority of the victims are professional drivers who have worked for years in reputable transport companies such as Baliuag Transit. The Center said the Philippine Consulate should intervene and obtain the passports of the stranded workers.

The plight of the 137 bus drivers were first exposed by Filipino journalists Jay Hilotin and Ares Gutierrez of Xpress publications based on a tip from a fellow Filipino working at Gulf News. Word quickly spread through e-mail and soon, an assembly time and place were designated to enable Filipinos to join an aid convoy leading to the camp where the bus drivers were staying. A Filipino association of Airsoft aficionados whose game was suspended last Friday, pitched in by giving cash donations.

Aside from lack of food, the drivers were sharing living quarters near the Ajman garbage dumpsite. Their building’s electric power is sourced from a generator, giving them only 3 to 4 hours of electricity. The building also has inadequate water supply.

According to the drivers, they paid as much as P150,000 to CYM International Services in exchange for jobs at RTA. Some of the drivers have been staying in Dubai waiting for the promised jobs to come into fruition since January.

Based on interviews with XPRESS, driver Max Sumulong, 34, one of the victims, said last year CYM had offered him a job as a driver for Dh5,200 a month and he had given the agency 10,000 pesos (Dh1,000) as “processing fee”.

“The agency had asked each one of us to take out a 150,000-peso (Dh11,418) loan from a lending agency recommended by them and made us sign undated cheques worth 405,000 pesos (about Dh40,000) addressed to a bank and the lending agency, payable in 15 months,” he said.

Eliseo Maximo, who has worked for 11 years as a bus driver in Manila, said: “We’ve been collecting aluminium cans, selling them at Dh4 per kg in Ajman, just to have something to eat.”

The stranded bus drivers are hoping that the Philippine Consulate can help them look for jobs in Dubai rather than be sent home. “Their biggest worry is on how they can repay the lending agency. If they come home, whatever they earn as bus drivers won’t be enough to pay off their loans and still sustain the needs of their families,” Ople explained.

Ople said she is awaiting documents from the bus drivers that would help speed up the POEA’s investigation into the alleged illegal recruitment practices of CYM International Services and its counterpart in Dubai. The Filipino community has lent the drivers a photocopy machine so they could consolidate and reproduce all the documents needed to bolster their case.

The former labor undersecretary also hoped that the 137 drivers would be able to meet President Arroyo, Vice-President Noli de Castro and other high-ranking officials in their visit to Dubai

Philippines, the pearl of the Orient

Brown Asbestos Dumped, Mankayan Benguet

by Artemio A. Dumlao

Mankayan, Benguet — Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company has dumped a cancer-causing substance in its landfill here, reason why residents including town officials are raising hell over their safety.

“They dug our mountains for gold and pay their taxes in Makati then they dump six truckloads of cancer-causing not from the mine waste but transported from their Makati main office,” Mankayan town Mayor Manalo B. Galuten said.

Galuten fears Lepanto, one of the biggest gold producer of the country, has put the lives and future of villagers in danger for dumping cancer causing hazardous substance – asbestos—in barangay Sapid.

Galuten is now holding a laboratory analysis from New Zealand which confirms that suspected asbestos containing material dumped in sitio Sapid, Mankayan has ten percent Amosite content.

Amosite variety of asbestos according to the US Environmental Protection Agency was used primarily as a fire retardant in thermal insulation products in old structures like in ceiling tiles. The material however is now banned in most countries especially because this form of asbestos is highly friable.

Friable means it crumbles easily when damaged, therefore releasing airborne fibers which can then be inhaled by those in the vicinity of the material causing a cancer form called mesothelioma — a rare type of cancer that most often occur in the thin membrane lining of the lungs, chest, abdomen and heart.

Residents reported around six dump trucks surreptitiously unloading what appears to be construction debris from ceiling panels and electrical insulations.

LCMC has conceded it has dumped materials but bely them as hazardous.

Mayor Galuten insists, “I want the company to totally clean up their garbage and be responsible for whatever health effect it may have in the future.”

Lamenting “they (LCMC) got our gold and replaced it with toxic waste,” Mayor Galuten though admitted that the mining firm gave employment and improved the local economy, but it should not justify the dumping of hazardous wastes.

The mayor also claimed that what is worst, ‘the waste did not even come from mining operations but imported from other LCMC operational areas.’

“I want the company to totally clean their dump and be ready to accept responsibility to whatever sickness the asbestos might cause to exposed residents in the future,” the mayor said.

Galuten vows that they will file a case “to set an example for large companies not to violate local laws or belittle their host communities.” They will ask the DENR to do their job and file appropriate criminal or administrative sanctions against the mining firm.

In April 2008, residents first noticed the dumping when around six ten wheeler trucks dumped what appeared to be construction debris in upper tram, Sapid, Mankayan.

The local police who probed the incidents reported by villagers confirmed the dumping of dirty white substances in black cellophane bags that are immediately covered with soil by a pay loader.

Sapid barangay council in a meeting confirmed the wastes were dumped by Shipside Trucking, an LCMC subsidiary, on April 10 and in 2007 in Sitio Tagumbao, Upper Tram in Barangay Sapid.

Sapid villager leaders via Barangay Resolution No. 34-2008 on April 12, requested LCMCo to “cease unloading or dumping of the waste (asbestos)” in their barangay and to relocate the said wastes to other sites.

“Responsibility”

The mine firm’s resident manager Engr. Magellan Bagayao has admitted responsibility.

LCMC admitted before the municipal council that the wastes which are pads and cushions came from the company’s Makati City office that was renovated.

Bagayao in his letter to Mankayan Vice Mayor Paterno Dacanay dated May 7, 2008, said that in the past 70 years, “the company is committed in the protection of the environment…the incident in Sapid will not be repeated.”

The mining firm then employed the services of Servo-Treat Phils., a DENR Region I accredited company to conduct repacking, transport, treatment and disposal of the suspected and presumed Asbestos containing materials at their treatment facility in Urdaneta, Pangasinan.

Local officials agreed with the treatment plan of Lepanto provided they will witness the hauling and transport.

Unfortunately, municipal and barangay officials were not informed of the hauling except for two who accidentally learned about the hauling. Councilor Mendoza and brgy Councilman Calapen were told that hauling will resume but the whole area was already back filled with soil.

Sapid residents and officials later learned that only about one and a half load of dirt was hauled out from the landfill as compared to at least six dump trucks that unloaded the construction debris.

Servo-treat President and CEO Dr. Eva F. Vertucio reported to have hauled 8.785 metric tons of soil and construction debris last October 14, 2008 and these were accordingly treated on October 19, 2008. The report also mentioned that the materials are “non-friable asbestos containing materials.”

Because of the increasing concern of residents, DENR-Cordillera officials initiated a joint meeting whereby parallel sampling was agreed to be taken by the local government and Lepanto.

Ironically, government agencies employed a private laboratory while the private mining company employed a government laboratory.

The DENR’s Regional Environment Management Bureau together with the local government brought samples to the Saint Louis University laboratory in Baguio city and was shown a 50 percent asbestos.

Meanwhile, the LCMC brought their sample to the Department of Labor and Employment’s Occupational Safety and Health Center in Manila .

A certification from DOLE-OSHC Exec. Director Dr. Dulce P. Estrella-Gust in her February 4, 2009 letter said all the samples analyzed do not contain any type of asbestos based on their laboratory method using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy.

Because of conflicting laboratory results, DENR representatives agreed with Mayor Galuten to invite a third party preferably from an international laboratory licensed by the National Credentialing Agency (NCA) to undertake another test.

Thus, the hauling out of the presumed asbestos containing debris was put on hold while awaiting the laboratory result from an internationally accredited company.

Globecare. DENR-Registered Hazardous Waste Service Provider was commissioned to take samples. The firm’s representative Danilo Javier took samples last February 20, 2009.

On February 27, GlobeCare Managing Director Joseph Gregory How released to Mayor Galuten the test result analyzed at an NCA laboratory confirming a ten percent Amosite content. The 10% Amosite (brown asbestos) is considered a hazardous waste, the result said.

Philippines, the pearl of the Orient