Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 17)— Senators on Tuesday questioned the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on why there was “zero acquittal” in cases involving overseas Filipinos in the first half of 2022 and why only a handful were cleared in recent years.
The discussion was made in a Senate hearing on the proposed expanded legal assistance for migrant workers.
Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva showed data coming from the DFA’s report to Congress indicating that from January to June 2022, there were no acquittals in the cases involving Filipinos abroad.
Based on the report, 1,278 overseas Filipinos have been convicted with finality in other countries.
“Ibig sabihin walang ginagawa ang gobyerno natin pagdating sa legal cases,” said Senate Committee on Migrant Workers Chairman Raffy Tulfo.
[Translation: This means the government is not doing anything when it comes to legal cases.]
DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Eduardo De Vega tried to explain the numbers but also emphasized that he was not the undersecretary handling the cases at that time.
“Kung hindi man na-acquit, hindi man nabigyan ng maximum penalty. Ibig sabihin din zero acquittal does not mean na lahat ‘yun nahatulan na guilty baka pending pa cases nun,” De Vega responded.
[Translation: If not acquitted, they were not given maximum penalty. Zero acquittal does not necessarily mean all of them were guilty, some may still have pending cases.]
But the senators did not accept the explanation of De Vega.
Tulfo then asked the official how many Filipinos were acquitted through the help of the DFA in recent years.
De Vega, however, was not able to provide the numbers and said that they will submit the data to the Senate.
The DFA official said that there could be a dozen acquittals in recent years but he has yet to give exact figures. He said there are also a number of out-of-court settlement of the cases.
“Ang nangyayari diyan blood money para sa mga OFWs? (So, they are just giving blood money to OFWS)?” Tulfo asked.
“We want to find out ilan ang na-acquit [how many are being acquitted], if there’s none then what the hell are we doing here we don’t even evaluate the things that we do so the next question will be why zero acquittal? Was there evidence gathering? Is there weak evidence gathering? Do we have problems in mechanism? Or is there a problem in legal representation to beneficiaries or we came in late to the overseas Filipinos case, because that’s the only way we can improve our services to our people,” Villanueva said.
Clashing over legal assistance
Tulfo also questioned the legal assistance provided for the Filipino nationals: “Or mahina ang mga abogado na nakuha ng ating DFA para idepensa ang mga Filipino nationals na may problema sa abroad baka pipichugin yung mga abogadong nakuha niyo.”
[Translation: Maybe the DFA gets lawyers of low caliber to defend Filipino nationals abroad.]
But De Vega replied: “Ang position ng DFA is ang bottomline they get legal representation kesa wala (The DFA’s position is, at least they get legal representation, it’s better than nothing).”
The pronouncement, however, did not sit well with the senator.
“Don’t say that na ‘kesa wala’ kailangan po magkaroon ng legal assistance ang mga Pilipino kasi kasama iyan sa mandato ninyo na dapat may Pilipino in distress kailangan gastusan, dapat kumuha ng abogado na magaling na alam ang kaso, kaya ipanalo ang kaso,” Tulfo said.
[Translation: Do not say that ‘at least they have legal representation.’ This is part of your mandate that whenever a Filipino is in distress you have to spend on legal assistance get a good lawyer, top caliber lawyers who know the case and can win a case.]
