SOME people think that the three Filipinos executed in China for drug trafficking should not be called “overseas Filipino workers” or OFW.
While we commiserate with the families of the three and saddened by their fate, we agree with the seemingly cruel view because OFW is an honorable term we confer on our modern-day heroes whose remittances have consistently save the country’s economy from collapse for decades now.
On the other hand, the executed convicts were not OFWs since, as the leader of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters Inc. argued, they had no record of being OFWs. They were not legitimately hired, had no working contracts and had no working visas when they were lured into transporting illegal drugs by a syndicate. There was even no way the concerned government agencies could have warned them about behaving properly in a foreign land precisely because they got out of the country clandestinely and not through proper channels.
The government, through Vice President Jejomar Binay, should be given credit for doing its best to save the three by making representations with the Chinese government to pity the convicts and spare their lives. That the effort failed does not diminish its being heroic.
Still, the government agencies assigned to guard our exit and entry points should share the responsibility of the fate of the three. If they did their job well enough and prevent the illegal exit of the three, they could have avoided their ignominious end.
