The Toll of Poverty and Forced Migration on the Philippines

It is always satisfying to hear that someone I have written about, who was stranded somewhere, is now safely back in the Philippines. This happened this week when I received an email from the brother of Leila Torres, the florist who had been stuck in Beirut, Lebanon, because her employer refused to let her go home. He told me that his sister is now safely back in Tarlac City and thanked me for writing about her.

I was happy to hear that she was back home with her family and loved ones, but was sorry that she was forced to go home empty-handed as her employer still owed her two months salary. “The problem is that my sister and her co-worker Precy were not paid their salaries for two months,” wrote Florante Torres.

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