Bravo, Bangladesh! Boo, Pilipinas!

Bangladesh has tightened its immigration rules and enforced a ban on its nationals working as housemaids in Gulf countries following an increase in the number of complaints from Bangladeshi maids abused by sponsors and recruitment agents in the Gulf.

In Bahrain, the Labor Ministry and other appropriate agencies took the move positively since it will be mutually beneficial. Immigration authorities in Bahrain, in fact, have stopped processing visas for Bangladeshi housemaids.

I doubt if the Philippine government will ever take the same position. They would rather listen to the sound of the cash registers of foreign exchange delears than defend the rights of our abused Filipinas across the Middle East.

Economics, foreign relations, oil, goodwill. All these are nothing to the families of abused and aggrieved Filipino workers.

And Bangladesh is poorer than us. But they can lift their chins up higher than ours on this department.