26 October 2005
Alaminos diocese marshal’s help for distressed OFW
BUGALLON – Bishop Jesus Cabrera of the Alaminos Diocese in Pangasinan is personally spearheading a fund-raising drive for a distressed Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW), now on her almost three-month of hospitalization in Amman, Jordan.
Cabrera, in a talk to newsmen at the Salasa Catholic Church, said they launched a diocesan-wide fund raising campaigns because of the pitiful plight of OFW Jennifer Perez, 23, from barangay Bisucol in Alaminos, whom he considers as “daughter of the diocese”.
Perez, an education graduate who already passed the teachers’ board examination, was confined at the Ibn Al-Haytham Hospital in Amman where she was operated on for fractured neck and pelvic bones after she fell from the second floor of her employer’s house on July 20 this year, only on her second day of work as domestic helper.
According to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration whose officer, Evelyn Larinang, is assisting Jennifer in Jordan, the OFW is now a little better than when she was first brought to the hospital but will become quadriplegic and would require a breathing machine for the rest of her life.
Cabrera said as of last April 14, Jennifer’s hospital bills had run up to U.S. $ 38,704.81 or P2.17 million. She could not be released from the hospital unless her bills are settled.
The bishop said this was not the first time that the Alaminos diocese involved itself in such a project, adding that there were many other OFWs whom they had assisted in the pat but not on diocesan-wide scale as in the case of Jennifer.
He said he knows Jennifer and her family very well, thus the diocese is extending such help to her.
“If you have a son or a daughter, it is but natural that you take good care of him or her than other children of other families. But if other also need help, we would also be responding,” Cabrera said.
Also in the press conference were Jennifer’s father Herminio, a businessman and former OFW; her mother, Lydia, a public school teacher; Bugallon Mayor Ricardo Orduña and representatives of the OWWA regional office.
Mrs. Perez said she wants her daughter repatriated to the Philippines as the girl had already told everything to police investigators when she regained her strengths that it was her employer who had pushed her from the second floor of the hose where she was working.
The Philippine embassy in Jordan has initiated legal proceedings against Jennifer’s employer, a certain Asaile Yousef Abetdat of Irbid, some 100 kilometers from the Jordianan capital of Amman.
Cabrera, in a talk to newsmen at the Salasa Catholic Church, said they launched a diocesan-wide fund raising campaigns because of the pitiful plight of OFW Jennifer Perez, 23, from barangay Bisucol in Alaminos, whom he considers as “daughter of the diocese”.
Perez, an education graduate who already passed the teachers’ board examination, was confined at the Ibn Al-Haytham Hospital in Amman where she was operated on for fractured neck and pelvic bones after she fell from the second floor of her employer’s house on July 20 this year, only on her second day of work as domestic helper.
According to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration whose officer, Evelyn Larinang, is assisting Jennifer in Jordan, the OFW is now a little better than when she was first brought to the hospital but will become quadriplegic and would require a breathing machine for the rest of her life.
Cabrera said as of last April 14, Jennifer’s hospital bills had run up to U.S. $ 38,704.81 or P2.17 million. She could not be released from the hospital unless her bills are settled.
The bishop said this was not the first time that the Alaminos diocese involved itself in such a project, adding that there were many other OFWs whom they had assisted in the pat but not on diocesan-wide scale as in the case of Jennifer.
He said he knows Jennifer and her family very well, thus the diocese is extending such help to her.
“If you have a son or a daughter, it is but natural that you take good care of him or her than other children of other families. But if other also need help, we would also be responding,” Cabrera said.
Also in the press conference were Jennifer’s father Herminio, a businessman and former OFW; her mother, Lydia, a public school teacher; Bugallon Mayor Ricardo Orduña and representatives of the OWWA regional office.
Mrs. Perez said she wants her daughter repatriated to the Philippines as the girl had already told everything to police investigators when she regained her strengths that it was her employer who had pushed her from the second floor of the hose where she was working.
The Philippine embassy in Jordan has initiated legal proceedings against Jennifer’s employer, a certain Asaile Yousef Abetdat of Irbid, some 100 kilometers from the Jordianan capital of Amman.
