Trash House Bill 1097

Kapatiran sa Gitnang Silangan

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

News Release
April 17, 2008

"No way! House Bill 1097 should automatically be trashed" -
KGS-Migrante Riyadh

"Drafting a bill that would hold us to pay a mandatory Pag-Ibig fee at this most exacting time is most revolting. No way! House Bill 1097 should automatically be trashed," thus said Edgar Cadano, secretary general of the Kapatiran sa Gitnang Silangan (KGS), the Riyadh-based organization working with Migrante International for the rights and welfare protection of migrant Filipinos.

"The House of Representatives should know better our real situation. Enough of state exactions especially these days when rice, bread, gas and oil prices are going up while the value of our remittances are diving low like the credibility of the present Philippine president," added Cadano.

The timing is very dubious especially that the bill is intended, as the bill author stated, "to ensure that it will continually grow and generate a poolof savings" for of the Home Mutual Development Fund headed by a known presidential runner this coming 2010.

Instead of drafting such bills that would impose more state exactions topublic and private employees as well as overseas Filipino workers, KGS said that the House of Representatives should draft a law that would provide low-cost homes for all Filipinos such as those that Gawad Kalinga is doing.

"If private groups can do it without exacting money from the homeless and poor Filipinos like the majority of the overseas Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia , then the author should be ashamed of his acts in filing this bill," Cadano added further.

"While we would love to have our own dream homes when we finally go home and settle with our beloved families that we have been physically detached in the Philippines , the skyrocketing prices of basic commodities disables us to save nor go home. Instead, the gentlemen of the House that are eyeing for a share of our hard-earned money are overruled by the OFWs.

"Go draft another bill. Trash this House Bill 1097," the Riyadh-based OFW group said in a statement.

For Reference:
Edgar Crisostomo Cadano, Secretary General
Kapatiran sa Gitnang Silangan, Riyadh-Saudi Arabia
Cellphone: 00966-508186919