By Joy B. Miranda
(Away from war stories for a while)

I want to whisk off myself a little bit from stories of war in Lebanon and the repatriation of Filipino workers there. Let me tell you of the many different events that happened in the past few weeks which I got involved literally. My friend Nelly called asking for the telephone number of Philippine Embassy in Jordan. I said she better ask from the office of the Philippine Consulate in Cyprus, which, unfortunately at 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon, she only had an answering machine to entertain her call.
So she called me again insisting that I should tell her the number, this time with a demanding tone. Sensing it was really urgent and important I asked back why the hell she wanted it. And this was her story… Amalia, her sister in law is in Jordan working as domestic helper. Her employer is a Jordanian married to a Russian woman. Amalia said that the husband is very good to her since she came in their house. However she noticed that the wife disliked her for reasons she does not understand why. As soon as the husband leaves for work daily, the wife treats her very badly by not giving her enough food or sometimes does not give her any food at all and making her work harder. She has to mop the floor many times as the wife steps intentionally on the wet floor or just make another mess and dirt.
When the baby cries, she wants to go and look after the baby but the wife stops her and just let the baby cry for an hour or more. In the evening when the husband arrives, the wife reports to him that their maid is not doing the work well and not taking care of their baby. With this daily scenario, Amalia tried to call her agent a number of times but was only ignored. Thinking she can no longer bear the way she is being treated, she asked help from Nelly. Anyway, I searched the telephone number of Philippine Embassy in Jordan through the net. Immediately, Nelly reported the case of Amalia but then it was already non-working hour so she was told they have to wait for the next day to see what they can do about it.
Unsatisfied, Nelly took the number of Amalia’s employers and called 8:00 o’clock in the evening and had a heated argument with them. This has irked the employers and started to threaten Nelly. Nelly as I have known her, is a fearless woman. When she hanged up the phone, she received messages from the employers which she right away forwarded to me. (Saved in my mobile phone, unedited)

“If u not stop this we will call 2 diplomatic police and then u will answer on yr proper behaivier. Coz I’m diplomatic, ok�

Alas, Nelly got mad even more! What we did next was, we searched again in the net the telephone number of Diplomatic Police in Jordan. Nelly told them of Amalia’s problem against her employers and gave the house address. Well, at 11:00 o’clock in the evening of same day, Policemen went to the employers house for questioning! The employers it was learned, apologized to Amalia in the presence of diplomatic policemen. Next day, Amalia’s agent has telephoned Nelly asking her to withdraw the complaint against the employers to clear the Police record. Of course, Nelly just shrugged her shoulders saying, “Why should I do that, Joy? What if next day something bad would happen and they will blame Amalia? Hah! Try me!�

How funny, is it not? Amalia’s story is just a simple case in compared to other problems which most of us are facing at the moment…the thing is that, employers tend to underestimate us it is because we are just their workers. Suffice it to say that generally, Filipino workers are more educated than the people they work for, yet because of fear of losing the job we always end up being abused or tolerate the boss to exploit us. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is really happening. How about you? Is your boss nice to you? Or let me put it this way, are you a good worker who can meet your boss’ expectation? Did you ask yourself about it? Because remember, it must be a two-way traffic. When after all you do good and they are not, then, make a move to stop it right away. Do not be afraid to fight for your rights. You are a Filipina, known to be clever and smart, so show them what you are!

By Joy B. Miranda

We may not seem to care about the actual happening of war and how many casualties it got just because we are not in the area. We continue our day to day life by being unmindful of its damages. But think for a second…at the end of each day, it might occur in your mind, how each victim in this war can sleep through seeing enormous bloodshed in where they lie…and imagine if by any chance you are there yourself as victim…don’t you cry out for help? Don’t you shout out for pity? Don’t you ever, ever ask yourself if there is somebody out there who could help?

I know you are glad that you are not in the war zone…but are you really happy? Listen to that tiny voice within you. Yes, there is someone who can help, and that is you…and you and us, helping hand in hand in anyway we can for the survivors of war.

Omar Khawaja, a Pakistan national who is an Editor-in-chief of Cyprus College paper “The Observer�, forwarded to me an email regarding an urgent call for world-wide help. Of course by all means I am giving it a space here.

URGENT CALLS FOR DONATIONS AND BASIC COMMODITIES FOR LEBANON

HOW YOU CAN HELP:
Bank account numbers for donations to Doctors of the World:

>>Bank of Cyprus: 0114-01-016785
>>Laiki Bank : 008-08-045447
>>National Bank of Greece: 525/519602-9
>>Arab Bank: 1301-093320-500
>>Alpha Bank: 202-101-000274-1
>>Coop Central Bank: 50-007964
>>Strovolos Coop Bank: 2042994-8
>>Aglatzia Coop Bank: 38110207

Donations may be made also via CYTA Charity Direct Service. Call at:

>>90936000 for donations of 1 pound
>>90938900 for donations of 5 pounds

Urgent calls are also made for medicines, mainly antibiotics,
antipyretics and painkillers. Also medicines for chronic diseases like diabetes, blood pressure or heart problems.

The Cyprus-Lebanese Association is also collecting donations of
essentials to ship to those people who remain in Lebanon.
The following are urgently needed: milk powder, nappies, baby food,
canned goods, marmalade, rice, sugar, cereal, cooking utensils, bleach, and blankets. They also need fire extinguishers and electricity generators.

The Lebanese Restaurant ‘Abu Faysal’ in Klementos St, Nicosia is
acting as a collection point. Please take anything you would like to donate there. If the restaurant is closed you can leave it on the porch.

The Cyprus-Lebanese Association aims to transport any donations to Limassol by Friday morning at the latest for shipment along the ‘humanitarian corridor’ to Beirut or Tyre.

For more information contact: Suzanna Mavromati: 22 61 00 77
To phone Abu Faysal direct call: 22 76 03 53