Bishop urges govt. to help Filipinos detained abroad ‎

A Catholic Church leader of the Philippines is calling on the government to help free Filipinos detained abroad and get them home safely. ‎"The time has come ease the suffering of these people. The government cannot abandon them,” said‎ Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, the president of the Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).  He has asked Manila to make every effort so that " their agony and their sorrow is not prolonged."  His words came in the wake of the homecoming of Filipino worker, Joseph Urbiztondo, after 25 years in detention in Kuwait.  He had managed to save his life paying the "blood money" to the family of a Bangladeshi he was accused of murdering though he denied it. 

According to the Philippine Foreign Affairs department, there are about 10 million migrant workers abroad, of whom 2.2 million in Saudi Arabia. At least 3,800 of them are in prison, 90 of them on death row. Of these, 41 are in Malaysia and 27 in the Saudi kingdom.  Not everyone can be saved like Urbiztondo.  According to Bishop Santos, this situation cannot continue to be managed without the ongoing commitment of authorities, and the Philippine government must devise a strategy to shorten the suffering of its workers abroad: "The government should assist them and help them, now and forever." (Source: UCAN)