“Their airplane will be leaving in a couple of hours and they will leave with far less money than each of them should have received from their employer. It comes out to about 25 cents on the dollar. What a bargain for their former employer,” said Aguon, who saw the workers for the last time yesterday afternoon at the Philippine Consulate here.
According to Aguon, Base Corp. told the workers that they would receive full repayment not only for the monthly deductions of $200, but also for the difference not earned by the workers due to Base Corp.’s practices of underpaying them.
One of the workers, Danilo Navarette, signed a contract with Topline Manpower Services to work here as a carpenter.
While the nationally accepted wage for carpenters is $13.56 per hour, Navarette earned just $11.70.
The workers signed on as carpenters but they also worked as electricians and plumbers, whose hourly wages are $15.45 and $14.96.
“My new friend Danny [Navarette] was very saddened by the majority rule vote that they all decided to accept,” Aguon said. “He kept apologizing to me for the inconvenience of the past few days.”
Aguon said the Philippine Overseas Employment Association told the workers they could to return to the island if they apply properly.
“But guarantees for me are just words because no one can guarantee the actions of others thousands of miles away,” Aguon said.
“I feel for these guys because all that they wanted to do was question why money was taken from them every month and when they sought help for this, the company began to ship them out.”
Sammy Hong, husband of Base Corp. president Che C. Hong, claimed to have been in Saudi Arabia for the past three months.
The Hongs also claim that they had no information about the $200 deducted each month from the workers’ salaries.
“The thing is for the past few days [the workers] have lived in fear thinking that Immigration was coming to deport them and they would be placed on a blacklist that would not allow them to return to Guam or the U.S. for at least 10 years,” said Aguon.
“As far as I know, [Immigraiton] doesn’t have people going out on the streets on a regular basis looking for illegal immigrants.”
Forty-eight of the 60 Filipino workers remain at the Base Corp. compound.
“I hope that [Base Corp.’s] ability to bring in H-2s will be stopped immediately because of their abuse and thievery,” Aguon said. “All of these nine guys will sit at home in the Philippines and wonder what would’ve happened if they stuck it out. We will need to have a great deal of assistance when the 10,000-20,000 additional H-2s come in [for the military buildup].”
Base Corp. office manager Marie Rimorin, in an earlier interview, said: “You have to hold [these worekrs] because you don’t know what the real story is. These Filipinos always do this when it’s time to go back. They create problems.”
