Email ArticleHEADLINERS |
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| Updated 2010 March 1 | ||
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Filipino seafarers, broke and confined
aboard the Palm Beach Princess, waive aimlessly to
onlookers behind guarded gates. |
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44 broke, stranded Filipino SeafarersHumanitarian Crisis Averted
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| (Page 2 of 5) | ||
"DIRE SITUATION"Most of the Filipino crew claim they do not have money to buy a plane ticket back to Philippines. They have not been paid for the last three weeks and some just started their contracts with the company. | ||
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"Exacerbating their problems, US Immigration rules does
not allow them to buy return tickets to the Philippines
via any US State, therefore, they need plane tickets
that leave from Miami International Airport via any
other country like London." "Their visas were expiring by February 22, 2010. If the Ship is ordered by the Courts to stay in the US they can be deported by the US Government and then banned from entering the US in the future." | |
| Mrs. Marilou Macatangay goes over legal documents | ||
HUMANITARIAN CRISISIf the Palm Beach Princess casino ship is brought back to the Bahamas on February 22, 2010 as per the owner’s wishes they fear they will be just left there with no jobs. We have heard that the ship may even go to Haiti to serve as a floating hotel. With the disaster that befell the country, what more would it do to the crewmen? It would have been a humanitarian crisis!" | ||
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"Our dilemma was to get them home safely and their visa status
clear where it would not ruin their chances in coming back to
work in the US," ConGen Macatangay said. "The best option was to
get the crewmen off the ship and have them fly back to the
Philippines from the US." To do so ConGen Macatangay needed to get airplane tickets to the Philippines, convince DHS to allow transit from the ship to place of departure. | ||
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The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) USA office, thru Don Duero reached out to the Philippine consulate in South Florida to help bring home the OFWs. The OWWA is an attached agency of the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) tasked to oversee the welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). "We received information that the Palm Beach Princess casino ship was planning to sail from Florida to Haiti on Feb. 23rd where it would be utilized as a floating hotel," said ConGen Macatangay. "We had to exert all efforts to get the Filipino seamen before it sailed." | ||
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