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From Poverty to Death Row

December 7, 2007

by Ricky Gelido

In the past weeks, the public’s attention has been focused invariably on the NBN-ZTE broadband deal, the blasts from different places of the country and the Manila Pen siege by Sen. Trillanes, among others including the curfew implementation. But in the midst of chaos, the public – more specifically the government – must be concerned with the case of an OFW whose fate is hanging on the balance: Marilou Ranario.

Ranario, a 33-year-old teacher from Surigao del Sur, went to Kuwait to work as a domestic helper. She had complained of repeated maltreatment from her employer that prompted her to kill the latter on January 11, 2005. Despite using the argument of self-defense, she was sentenced to die by hanging. Now, she is in the death row.

Granting that there has been negligence on the party of Ranario, that is not the main issue anymore. The government should take all the necessary last-ditch efforts to stop the execution of Ranario. There is stll time. The government should take up the cudgels to save a soul who was driven away to another country because of poverty.

This is not the first time, though, in the history and stories of OFWs to have some of them abused, maltreated or worse, be in the death row. Do we still remember Flor Contemplacion, Sarah Balabagan, Sarah Balabagan, Reynaldo Cortez and Rodelio Lanuza, among others?

Year after year, there is an exodus of Filipino workers to other countries. Somehow, they become of help - through their remittances - to the country’s economy, the reason why they are considered “new economic heroes.” But there is a glaring truth, however, in seeing them go abroad. Isn’t it poverty, joblessness and hopelessness in their homeland Philippines?

They all left the country for “good” only to find out for themselves that they had to fight for their existence. Driven by poverty, they went abroad to try their luck. They were forced to choose to be away from their relatives only to land – for some- in the dens of maltreatment and abuses. They went abroad presumably to rescue their families from deep economic distress only finding their own lives being risked.

Despite being a teacher, Marilou Ranario preferred to be a domestic helper. Had she not been driven by poverty and just remained in the Philippines, she would not have been in the death row now. But….

From poverty to death row. Such is the plight of Marilou Ranario. And she is not the only one. #

Posted by Robert Bolisay | Filed in Opinion 

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