OFW back in PH after 20 yrs in Kuwaiti jail
Home atleast after serving 20 of a 25-year sentence for allegedly killing a Bangladeshi co-worker in Kuwait, overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Yusuf Urbiztondo, 44, appealed to the country’s two highest officials for livelihood assistance to get his life back on trach.
“Maski kaunti lang na livelihood. Sana tulungan ako ni President Aquino at Vice President Binay. Hindi nila ako tinulungan noon ako ay nasa kulungan,” said Urbiztondo who was jailed in 1996 after he was accused of hilling Azizur Rahman, a co-worker at a hotel in Kuwait where he used to be a professional tennis instructor.
To this day, Urbiztondo maintains that he had nothing to do with Rahman’s death.
Urbiztondo is apparently still sore at the government for not helping him during the long years he was detained at the Sulaibiya Central Jail in Kuwait.
On his Facebook account, the OFW, who worked at the Khiran Resort Hotel in Kuwait as tennis instructor, had issued previous appeals to the President and the Vice Presi- dent.
But only netizens responded and comforted him.
The Urbiztondos were former residents of Palanan, Makati. Their father, Moises, was a Makati policeman. Moises and Marife Urbizontondo are both deceased.
Now a resident of Bacoor, Cavite, Urbiztondo arrived yesterday morning at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal II. He said the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait provided his plane ticket for his journey home.
After interviews by members of the media at the NAIA, Urbiztondo and his eldest sibling Joan U. Marquez and her children and friends immediately proceeded to visit the graves of their parents at the Makati cemetery.
They then went to the Las Piñas District Hospital to comfort their other sibling, Jonna Marie, who may lose a leg due to diabetes.
Joseph Urbiztondo walked out of his prison cell on Jan. 24 after the payment of a $26,000 blood money to the heirs of Rahman. The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait and the Filipino community and other well-meaning Filipinos produced the blood money.