Presidential awardee seeks lifting of ban
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Global Nation Most Read RSSMANILA, Philippines -- Nigeria is a safe place for Filipinos because they do not suffer racial discrimination and are actually treated as white, said a Filipina working there, as she urged the government to lift the deployment ban in that country.
"I say that Filipinos are treated as whites in Nigeria because we get the same compensation as white expatriates. Filipinos in Nigeria are highly paid, from $1,000 to $20,000 a month plus other benefits like a house, a car, a driver, a steward [a housekeeper], and a local allowance of $1,000 for daily expenses," said Esperanza Racelis-Derpo, who received the Banaag Award this December from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
"Many Filipinos in Nigeria just spend their allowance for their daily requirements and save the rest of the money," she added.
There are an estimated 6,000 Filipinos in Nigeria.
Derpo, an engineer who works as a visa writer at the British Deputy High Commission office in Victoria Island, Lagos, thus asked the government to lift the deployment ban there.
"The ban was imposed after some Filipino seafarers were kidnapped in 2006. But the kidnapping happened in southern Nigeria, much like our conflict in Basilan, very far away from the rest of Nigeria," she said in an interview with INQUIRER.net.
At the same time, she said the ban was unfair and inconvenient for Filipinos working there.
"The ban affects not just new hires, but vacationing Filipinos as
well, Filipinos who have been working in Lagos and in the non-oil areas for a long time already," said the resident of Lagos for more than eight years.
Derpo said so many supervisory and managerial positions await
Filipinos in Nigeria, particularly in the manufacturing, oil, and aviation sectors.
Unlike in Lebanon, where the government has partially lifted the ban and has allowed vacationing Filipino domestic helpers to
return to their employers, the Presidential awardee said Nigeria was generally a peaceful place.
"We don't have bombings. I myself leave for work at 5:30 in the
morning with only my driver and nothing untoward has happened. I myself would not stay in Nigeria if it weren't safe there," she said.
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