I’m sharing with you excerpts from letters of friends in Saudi on the gruesome crime involving Filipinos:
One letter:
“Initially, matunog ang tungkol sa drugs pero sa investigation lumalabas, laban ito ng 2 grupo ng Kapampangan na nagpapa-lottery at jueteng. Ang isa raw ay tinatawag na Arayat group. Yung rival group ay galing sa area ni Bong Pineda.
“ Those are the words used. ‘Laban ng mga bangkero ‘yan. Ito’y hindi nagpunta dito para magtrabaho bilang OFW kundi para magpasugal.”
Matindi talaga ang sugalan (lottery, cockfighting, ending, etc.) kasi dito at pati mga ibang expats at Saudis ay naa-addict.
Another letter:
The two rival financiers , which we will just identify as R and E, and their men are from Pampanga but it’s not a purely Kapampangan affair.
Suspected to be among those killed:
R, financier for jueteng and lottery.
D, was cabo.kubrador for R. He was working at Sarawat supermarket.
G ,driver of R.
E is said to be among those detained.
Note that six people have been reported missing. As reported by the Inquirer three days ago, three of these six belong to one family (A) — husband, wife and son. The trio are being linked to the “Sawa Scam,” which is said to be a front for a pyramid scam, and drug trafficking. They are also being linked to R, the gambling bangkero. Husband and son are co-workers of D at Sarawat.
After D disappeared, the A father-and-son also went missing, and neighbors later noticed that even the wife known as “Madam S” was nowhere to be found. They were thought to have gone into hiding because Madam S was being hunted by their Sawa Scam victims.
Please note that the police have yet to come out with an official report on who are dead and who are in jail. Also, please note what the Saudi Ambassador to Manila, Wali Ameen, is saying in the interview he gave to Al-Watan, an Arabic newspaper. The ambassador was quoting Jeddah police as saying some of those in jail are asking not to be released yet for fear that they would be killed. There’s a gang war between the two groups going on.
Ellen,
Gosh, I had only paid scant attention to the Saudi slayings – just read the titles of the news but wasn’t remotely interested in the news at all but it has reverberated somewhat here and if I’m not mistaken, in some parts of Europe too particularly in Germany.
The news will exacerbate the already diminished credibility of a nation because of the reputation of the country’s politics and corruption.
I just couldn’t believe that I would come face to face with the news again in your blog after this afternoon experience of mine: I was playing golf this afternoon with a couple of Belgian acquaintances who happened to comment on the Saudi slayings because they have a Pinay domestic helper .
They said that their domestic helper told them “that the killers were from the province of the president (Gloria) whom their maid said, is a thief and a numbers game operator in the Philippines so, they wanted to know if there was a connection there (I hastily surmised they wanted to know if Gloria is involved in overseas gambling – heheh).
To be honest, I was a bit stunned by their question. Obviously, they know very little about the country save for what they read in the papers or hear from their Filipina maid. Frankly, I got a bit irritated that they should ask me that sort of thing on the golf course (It occured to me that they did it deliberately – heheh!) and so, said rather obliquely, “Well, Gloria received financing for her elections from gambling lords, her husband is a thief and a gambler but can’t really be sure if they are part of the overseas workers’ gambling syndicate in Saudi Arabia – it would be like saying that today’s decendants of the army of blacks imported by King Leopold the 2nd are still slaves to the present King of the Belges (while pointing to two black men who were picking up golf balls at a distance outside the fairway).”
I must admit that wasn’t quite the answer they expected but I’ve become a bit sensitive nowadays and don’t relish “silly comments”. Beside, Europeans on the whole do not have a high opinion of Filipinos and of the Philippines in general. They’re probably right about Filipinos and the Philippines but I wasn’t going to accept “snide” remarks without a counter sting.
Ellen,
Off topic: a friend of mine (president of the the federation of Fil-associations in France) rang me this instant to say that Loida Nicolas Lewis who is in Paris is hosting a dinner tonight for the presidents of various Fil associations to ask them to organize a NAFAAA tupe of association in France and to talk about a couple of other issues.
My friend asked me what he I thought of NAFAAA and how he and his friends could address the issues pertaining to the Cha-cha efforts in Pinas to convey to Loida, her being the chair of the US organization.
I don’t know much about the NAFAAA but told him about the internal bickerings – but I said that he and his friends should categorically oppose the charter change in the Philippines and perhaps join hands with NAFFAAA through Loida in opposing the charter change (if that is NAFFAAA’s stand).
To this end, he asked me to draft a resolution that he could present to the Fil federation which could then be passed on to Loida and NAFFFAA eventually. I thought it would be good to ask those in Pinas to provide these Filipinos in France with the right info before making a final draft.
Thanks.
You have to make sure first that NAFAAA is taking a stand against charter change. I’m not so sure if Loida Lewis has ceased supporting GMA.
Despite that little incident about her micro-finance project, I doubt if she has abandoned GMA.
Some friends in San Francisco said NAFAAA meetings there are being used as venue for GMA to continue spreading her lies. I don’t feel excited about it.
Ellen,
My friend called me after his dinner with Loida and told me that Loida is inviting him and a few other Filipinos to the NAFAA convention in Hawaii to which, apparently, Gloria will be invited too.
For info, you may be right because Loida told him that she is not adverse to the changing of the Constitution – my friend said that he agreed with her view but if there’s gonna be charter change, he insisted it’s got to be done legally through a consitutional convention and not through a Gloria sponsored PI and definitely not by adopting the charter that Gloria proposes today. (I briefed him quite lengthily on that last weekend when I drove to Paris.)
I’m pretty happy that has decided to adopt this stand.
We spoke at length on the phone and I told him to join your blog so he can have access to other Filipinos worldwide and in the Philippines most importantly (he didn’t know that Filipino journalists have set up blogs). His main concern is that a majority of Filipinos in Europe are often clueless on what’s really going on in Pinas because they are kind of isolated and are more focused on their own problems which they encounter here.
I’m trying a little to do my bit by informing him as much as I could (summing up the news, the issues and a lot of other things pertaining to Pinas) so that he could pass them on to the community in France.
I’ve persuaded him to write in your blog even in Tagalog (I told him English is not a requisite). His ID is Juan de la Franco.
Thanks…
Nakakatakot itong mga nangyayari sa ating mga OFWs sa Saudi kung may katotohanan ang laman ng letter na galing Saudi. See? the Pineda virus is spreading like a deadly disease. Kasi ba naman protektado ng “commander in thief” kaya malakas ang loob magdala ng sugal sa ibang bansa, kung saan bawal na bawal pa naman ang sugal. Magkano kaya ang collection ng mga protectors!!!!
Anna, you are doing a service to the country by countering the Gloria Arroyo’s propaganda.
By the way, Ellen, on the subject of the “pyramid scam”.
Juan de la Franco told me recently that a pyramid scam of some kind is proliferating in France through a PCI bank branch there (I wasn’t aware that there was a PCI bank branch in Paris) – he told me that the branch executive and a woman who was related to the convicted pyramid scam perpetrator in Manila a couple of years ago (???) are involved.
When Juan told me this, I wasn’t really paying attention but after reading your column, the “pyramid scam” hit me. He also said that they alerted the embassy about this which promptly issued a warning to Filipinos there to be cautious lest they be victimized.
I will try to get more details or perhaps ask Juan to write about it himself.
The OFWs are prime target of pyramid scam brains because they are the one who have extra money.
Manpower export as a government policy is exploitative and inhuman.