OFWs
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01.24.08Arcelie Laoagan: Link Roundup
Our first post on this tragedy is here. Meanwhile, here’s a roundup of news reports on the murder of Arcelie Laoagan.
Edmonton Sun, 20 January: Friends of a missing Filipina woman working two jobs in Calgary to support her family in her homeland suspect she’s the victim found dead behind a southeast Calgary church.
Arcelie Laoagan, 40, was reported missing by her roommate when she didn’t return home after leaving work at West Canadian at 10 p.m. Thursday.
The blood-soaked body of a woman matching Laoagan’s description was found at 6 a.m. Friday behind the Grace Baptist Church.
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01.24.08Arcelie Laoagan, 2008
This is really bad news. We tend to think that Canada is one of the safest countries in the world but this incident, on top of the earlier murder of Jocelyn Dulnuan, isn’t very reassuring. Here’s a report from the Inquirer on the murder of Arcelie Laoagan, a kailiyan who migrated to Calgary.
Another Cordilleran murdered in Canada — report
By Vincent CabrezaAnother Cordilleran has been reported murdered in Canada. Canadian newspapers reported this week that the “blood soaked body” of Arcelie Laoagan, 40, had been found by subway train workers on Friday behind a church in Calgary, Alberta.
Anthony Basil, Cordillera case officer of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, said Laoagan, a native of Sagada, Mt. Province, was the second migrant worker to fall victim to a crime in Canada in recent months.
Ifugao-born immigrant Jocelyn Dulnuan, 27, was murdered in a plush neighborhood of Mississauga City last October 1. Police have arrested two Latin American immigrants for the murder.
“We now have to address two fatalities from Sagada. We just received home [the body of Sagada native Zennia Aguilan, who was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan],” Basil said. The OWWA is awaiting feedback from the country’s foreign office in Canada.
Laoagan was reported missing on January 17 when she failed to return home. According to an online report of the Calgary Herald, she called friends when she was apparently attacked.
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01.20.08Zennia Aguilan Updates
She’s home. From ABS-CBN: The remains of a Filipina spa supervisor who was killed in a suicide attack at a luxury hotel in Afghanistan arrived in Manila Saturday evening. The body of Zennia Aguilan arrived 10:35 p.m. via Emirates flight EK 334. Her remains were met by her two siblings. They however declined to give any statement. Read the full article here.
Sagada folk condemn Afghanistan bombing. From Bulatlat.com: While residents of Sagada, Mountain Province (275 km north of Manila) mourn for the death of a community member in a suicide bombing incident in Afghanistan on Jan. 14, they condemn the bombing incident as inhuman and at the same time criticized the labor export policy of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as a “push factor” for health professionals. Read the rest here.
Insensitive as ever, OWWA Administrator says “I told you so”. Remember Marianito Roque? He is the OWWA Administrator who, after stating that Jocelyn Dulnuan was remiss for not paying her dues (scroll down), used Dulnuan’s death to ask OFWs to pay their OWWA dues. This time, Marianito is using Zennia’s death to prove that he is right in banning the deployment of OFWs to Afghanistan. Read the report at GMA News.
Maybe I’m being overly critical, and Marianito may very well be right, but I think there are better times to say those kinds of things. If he is going to undertake a PSA (public service announcement) campaign about paying OWWA dues and not going to dangerous places, can’t he at least wait for families who lost their love ones to grieve before he opens his mouth?
Show some respect, man.
