Overseas Filipinos feel heartache over missing parcels for loved ones, demand answers
At this time of year, Fatima Ramos would normally be preparing her balikbayan boxes. Overseas Filipinos typically fill these boxes with gifts, clothes, food and household items to send to their loved ones back home in the Philippines for Christmas. Ramos has previously sent the tax-exempt parcels to her family and Philippine charity organisations from Abu Dhabi, where she works as a domestic…
As Christmas approaches, many Overseas Filipinos find themselves distressed over missing balikbayan boxes containing gifts for their loved ones back home. Fatima Ramos, a domestic worker in Abu Dhabi, sent tax-exempt parcels to her family and charitable organizations in the Philippines from Abu Dhabi. However, she now seeks answers as some of her boxes arrived damaged or have gone missing entirely.
Another engineer, known as Ric, faced a similar issue while working in Saudi Arabia, waiting months for his balikbayan box to be shipped from Jeddah. These boxes, often containing weeks or months of careful selection and hard-earned savings, represent love and care from afar. However, thousands of these boxes are currently unclaimed, some abandoned in shipping containers at Philippine ports and others stranded in their countries of origin due to problems involving cargo forwarding companies.
The Philippine Bureau of Customs revoked the license of cargo forwarding company Makati Express Cargo in January and filed criminal complaints against it in May over unclaimed boxes worth over 30 million pesos (US$1.6 million). Ramos discovered the mounting complaints only after returning to the Philippines, where she found 29 abandoned shipping containers holding at least 10,000 boxes.
The loss of these boxes, she says, leaves families feeling a sense of trauma and disappointment, as they symbolize the workers' love and sacrifice.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
