MANILA — The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has provided burial assistance to the family of Joanna Demafelis, the overseas Filipino worker whose body was found in a freezer in an abandoned apartment in Kuwait.
“We also assured the family that the agency will extend educational assistance and other services to (Joanna’s sister) Joyce. Joanna’s family will also be given counseling to help them cope with their loss,” DSWD Officer-in-Charge Emmanuel A. Leyco said Thursday.
Joanna’s parents are both senior citizens and are beneficiaries of the DSWD’s Social Pension Program. They work as farm laborers and are taking care of Joanna’s nephew Ralph John Demafelis, who is receiving cash grants under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
Leyco said it is tragic that “so many of our kababayans (compatriots) end up killed or murdered in cold blood overseas”.
“It is clear that it is the deep-seated and widespread poverty that goads Filipinos to work abroad, even as it means leaving their families and (their) young children behind and taking the risk of ending up with cruel and inhumane employers,” he said.
The social welfare chief acknowledged the need to improve the labor and employment situation in the country so Filipinos would no longer need to go abroad for gainful employment. (Leilani Junio/PNA)
