POLO won’t pursue case vs employer of suicide victim

THE Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) will no longer pursue charges against the employer of a Filipino domestic worker who committed suicide in LOHAS Park, Labor Attaché Jalilo Dela
Torre said.

Dela Torre said the POLO decided not to file a case after the employer agreed to pay for the repatriation of the victim’s remains to Leyte.

“We will no longer do that because she already paid. We told her that we had a lawyer and it was her choice if she wanted the case to proceed,” Dela Torre said in an interview.

“She decided to pay,” he added.

Dela Torre earlier said that the POLO wanted to file a “test case” against the employer who initially insisted that she was not paying even after the Labour Department summoned her.

“We were able to talk during the viewing at the mortuary and I told her it was her responsibility. Read the contract. It’s clear an employer has to shoulder the repatriation,” Dela Torre said.

The 47-year-old Filipino worker was found under a footbridge in LOHAS Park on March 18. She was the fifth Filipino suicide in Hong Kong this year and the fourth domestic worker who took her life because of debts.

“According to the employer, she owed her $20,000 and two financing companies are also calling,” Dela Torre said.

“I don’t know how much she owed the financing companies,” he said.

“She had been with her employer for 10 years and it was only recently that she had these problems. They found a pawn ticket. Her cousin said her parents were recently almost always in the hospital,” he added.

Dela Torre said police investigators found a suicide note at the scene of the incident while a CCTV camera also reportedly captured her jumping off the footbridge.

The police were able to identify her only on March 24 when her Hong Kong ID was found by the police. Her remains were repatriated on April 21.