OFW dies on way home from Malaysia–DFA

Written by changthai11 on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — A cancer-stricken Filipina who was on her way back to the country after a brief undocumented stint in Malaysia collapsed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport September 28 and died the following day at the KL General Hospital, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.

The woman, in her early forties and whose name was withheld for privacy reasons, went to Malaysia five months ago in search of work and on the invitation of a Filipino friend married to a Malaysian, the DFA said.

She worked for two months as a domestic worker but was forced to stop due to her poor health, it said.

On September 17, she asked the help of the Philippine embassy in Kuala Lumpur which brought her to KLGH, where her attending physicians discovered she had cancer. She told the doctor that she had undergone mastectomy and chemotherapy in 1997, it said.

On September 26, she was released from the hospital after a brief confinement where she also showed marked improvement, it said.

The doctors suggested she returned to the Philippines, it said.

On September 28, while waiting for her flight back to Manila at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the Filipina fainted and the embassy’s assistance-to-nationals Officer who accompanied her had to rush her back to KLGH, where she died a day after, according to the DFA.

The DFA and the Philippine embassy in Kuala Lumpur will facilitate the repatriation of her remains to Manila.

At the same time, the Philippine embassy in Malaysia again reminded Filipinos not to come looking for work in Malaysia on a visit visa.

It said the practice of hiring “tourist workers” was against Malaysian labor and immigration regulations.

The Philippine embassy said undocumented Filipino workers were vulnerable to abuse and exploitation as their presence was unknown to the embassy or to any other Philippine government agency.