Nigeria punishes 13 Filipinos for oil theft in delta

ABUJA, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Thirteen Filipinos were sentenced to five years in jail or a $6,770 fine on Friday after pleading guilty to handling oil products suspected to have been stolen in the Niger Delta.

The military arrested them in November after intercepting a vessel suspected of carrying 12,000 tonnes of stolen crude oil in the delta, the heart of Nigeria’s oil sector.

Nigeria is the world’s eighth biggest exporter of crude oil but thieves take a sizeable proportion of its output by drilling into pipelines or hijacking barges loaded with oil, theft known locally as “bunkering”.

“The accused persons, who initially pleaded not guilty on arraignment, later changed their plea and they were found guilty based on their plea,” said a spokesman for Nigeria’s anti- corruption police, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Some estimates say 100,000 barrels of crude are stolen from the Niger Delta each day, about five percent of the country’s production and equivalent to around $4 million daily or $1.5 billion a year at current prices.

It is shipped out of Nigeria and sold on the international market. Human Rights Watch has put the amount stolen at two or three times that level.

Last week, the military impounded 22 barges of stolen crude oil in the delta in what it said was its biggest seizure for months. (Reporting by Randy Fabi, edited by Richard Meares)

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http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKLK13877320090220

Militants hit OFW forum

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
By Annabelle L. Ricalde

MILITANTS protested Tuesday in front of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) office to denounce the holding of Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) in the country next week.

The two-day forum will be participated by different countries that are members of the United Nations, private banks, investors from big telecommunication companies, money transfers and recruitment agencies.

Wildon Barros, spokesperson of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) in Northern Mindanao, said the purpose of the forum is to re-align the working system abroad for the government and other big corporations to benefit the dollar remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). He said the forum will also outline new taxes for OFWs.

“Nahimo na nga commodities ang atong mga OFWs nga basta na lang ipatrabaho sa gawas ug gihimong gatasan sa gobiyerno,” Barros told Sun.Star.

Militants condemned President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the continuing economic crisis, which they said has made the country the second largest human resource exporter in the world.

Barros added that the forum will actually represent how backward the country’s economy is, contrary to Arroyo’s claim that the forum will delve on the OFWs contributions to the country’s economy.

Surprised by the protest, Roseller Bartolome, Owwa’s officer-in-charge explained that their office is not the proper agency to answer the grievances aired by the militants.

“Kumbaga sa task force, Owwa is only a member and besides we are only implementing mandate from the national level,” Bartolome told Sun.Star.

The scheduled activity is a multi-agency forum coming from different countries in which delegates will discuss the human depict of migration and recognize it as the key to development.

Barros, along with other militant groups such as Anak Pawis, Gabriel-Northern Mindanao Region and Alagad sa Maayong Panlawas, is also demanding the removal of remittance fee and service charges, including documentary stamp tax, imposed on OFWs.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/cag/2008/10/22/news/militants.hit.ofw.forum.html

‘Zero remittance day’ to cost govt millions – group

10/21/2008 | 05:45 AM

zero-remittance for OFWs

MANILA, Philippines – Militant groups are eying hundreds of millions of pesos in “lost” revenues for government when they hold a zero-remittance day protest action on Oct. 29.

Gary Martinez, spokesman of Migrante International, said Monday this will be a reminder to the government that its claim of migration being used as a tool of development will not wash.

“Sa loob ng isang araw, maliwanag aabot ito sa daang milyong piso. Sa isang buwan $1 billion pinapadala ng OFW. Kung kukuwentahin sa 30 araw daang-milyon piso ang di papasok sa ating bansa (In a single day we expect government to lose hundreds of millions of pesos in remittances. In a month, OFWs bring in $1 billion in remittances. Divide it by 30 and we can see hundreds of millions of pesos in lost remittances in a single day),” Martinez said in an interview on dzBB radio.

He said they expect millions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in 192 countries to take part in the Zero Remittance Day next Wednesday.

Martinez also questioned the government’s offer of a retraining program for OFWs who may lose their jobs due to the global financial crisis.

According to him, the government issued a similar retraining program offer in 1997 but OFWs did not benefit from it.

“Wala kaming nakuhang retraining program. Di na bago ang sinasabi ng pamahalaan sa pangyayari sa aming kasamahan sa labas ng bansa (We got no retraining program. So the government’s offer is not new),” he said.

Earlier, migrant groups composed of 112 organizations worldwide will declare Oct. 29 as a “Zero Remittance Day” to signify its opposition to “forced migration and systematic exploitation of cheap labor.”

In a statement released on Sunday, the International Migrants Alliance (IMA) said its symbolic protest action would coincide with the opening of the Global Forum on Migrant Development (GFMD) that would be hosted by the Philippines in Manila.

IMA said that through the Zero Remittance Day, the organizations would be sending out united message of protest from millions of migrants worldwide “who are forced to leave their homelands and subject themselves to cheap labor and exploitation out of desperation.”

The alliance said the message would discredit migration as an effective tool for development, and unmask it as a “result of continuous unemployment, landlessness, and lack of basic services in sending countries.”

Migrant organizations worldwide will also hold the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR) on October 29 to oppose the GFMD.- GMANews.TV

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/128279/Zero-remittance-day-to-cost-govt-millions—group