THE REAL DEVIL UNMASKED
By Migrante-Philippines
Before proceeding to NAIA to welcome more than a hundred OFWs from Kuwait, Duterte once again uttered colorful language to mask himself as a sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter.
“You come home and I will sell my soul to the devil to look for money so that you can come home and live comfortably here,” Duterte said during the oath-taking event for newly appointed officials.
This statement was made after the tragic story of Joanna Daniela Demafelis shocked the public. For over a year, her corpse was stuffed inside a freezer and initial investigations reveal signs of torture. Several more cases of OFW deaths in Kuwait are also undergoing investigation and Duterte himself said before the media in Davao that there are as many as 120 Filipinos who died in Kuwait last year. Eventually, Duterte ordered a deployment ban of domestic workers to Kuwait. Just before we could even bind our emotional wounds caused by these gruesome horror stories, Malacanang made a mockery of newly-arrived repatriates by driving them away once more as China is now being considered by his regime’s labor authorities as the next destination of displaced OFWs.
Masquerading as an “Angel of Light,” there is no doubt that Duterte the devil has mastered the art of deception and trickery. Has he not even realized the glaring contradiction when he expressed his wish to have OFW repatriates live comfortably in the Philippines only to expel them the next moment? Certainly, no words can describe the uplifting feelings of their loved ones after heaving a sigh of relief knowing that their mothers, fathers or siblings are finally back home safe from the shadows of death in a distant land instead of arriving inside a casket. But alas, they are to be sent away anew by no other than one of the manifestations of the devil himself, President Rodrigo Duterte. As the Philippines accumulate piles of debt from Chinese loans and as one land mass after another in our territorial waters is being devoured by China, our hardworking people are pimped out by the government’s atrocious Labor Export Program.
More appalling, Duterte expressed gratefulness to contractual kings Lucio Tan and Gokongwei and vowed to protect their business interests for shouldering the flights of OFW repatriates. It is no secret that these vicious wolves that Duterte are dressing in sheep’s clothing are among those who torment local Filipino workers with low wages and contractual jobs that prod them to search for greener pastures overseas. It is quite ironic that Duterte even demanded from the Kuwaiti government to improve their labor conditions for Filipino workers when in the first place, those OFWs left the Philippines because they are afflicted back home with greater labor woes perpetuated by these very same wolves he graciously showered with flattering remarks. Adding insult to injury, access to government services continue to be poor and prices of commodities soar unabated due to the US-Duterte regime’s unscrupulously enacted TRAIN or Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion. Truly, these features of forced migration are the roots of all evil besetting our workforce.
Migrante is firm in its position that in order to finally end forced migration, the Philippines needs to institute labor reforms like enacting a national minimum wage closer to the living wage and totally abolishing all forms of contractualization. Importantly, it must also endeavor to address the wretchedness of agriculture through a genuine agrarian reform coupled with national industrialization. These reforms could have been tackled had the US-Duterte regime and his peace-spoilers in the military did not terminate the GRP-NDFP peace talks which was already on the final stages of presenting the CASER draft or the Comprehensive Agreement for Social & Economic Reforms.
Unless these reforms are achieved we can always expect Duterte the devil and his succeeding heirs to continue resorting to all forms of deception and arrogantly stand as false messiahs in lying wonders. It is essential that the Filipino people guard their hearts and minds against deceitful serpents wallowing in puppetry and subservience to foreign imperialist interests. Indeed, the US-Duterte regime is drunk in the wine of his neoliberal fornications. ###
