OFW scalded by employer returns from Riyadh

After enduring a four-year battle with her employer who scalded her with boiling water, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was finally reunited with her family in the Philippines yesterday.

Pahima Alagasi left the Philippines in March, 2014 and served as a household service worker in Riyadh but sought refuge at the Embassy two months later after she was hospitalized with serious burns she claimed she sustained after the mother of her employer poured boiling water on her back.

In a press briefing, Philippine Ambassador to Riyadh Adnan Alonto said the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh assisted Alagasi, a 30-year-old separated mother of two, in filing a case of maltreatment against the mother of her employer but this was dismissed after she failed to prove her accusation.

Alagasi has been staying at the Embassy’s Bahay Kalinga shelter since then and could not return to the Philippines because her employer filed a counter case against her.

President Duterte’s own brand of “effective diplomacy” has been credited for the release from Saudi Arabia prison and homecoming of Alagasi.

Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz III, an OFW partylist representative in Congress, said that Alagasi’s case was personally brought up by Duterte with Saudi Prince and Interior Minister Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif during the Arab royalty’s visit to Manila last March 19.

Alagasi, a native of Pikit, Cotabato, is scheduled to call on the President in Davao City tomorrow, Saturday, where she will also be reunited with her two children for the first time since she left for Riyadh.

According to Susan Ople of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, what happened to Pahima is “a textbook case of how our intricate system of migrant workers’ protection and diplomacy failed her.”

She urged the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to review its legal assistance and humanitarian service delivery.