QC maid abused, tortured until she went blind

[hubag bohol]

Friday, August 10, 2012 10:44 PM





At an early age of 16, Bonita Baran left her hometown in Catanduanes to work as a house maid in Quezon City. But her aim to find a better life in the city led to a painful fate.

A wheelchair-bound Baran, accompanied by her mother Erlinda and sister Olivia, went to the office of Assistant City Prosecutor Irene Resurreccion to sue her employers Reynold and Analiza Marzan of Visayas Avenue for attempted murder, physical injuries, and serious illegal detention.

Since the couple hired her in 2007, Baran said she had been wounded with a knife, struck in the head with hard objects until she bled, punched in the eyes, singed with a flat iron, and force-fed with dead cockroaches.

Baran sustained serious injuries and bruises all over her body due to alleged repeated beating and hitting. She also has deformed ear and lips, after her female employer battered it with a figurine. One of her teeth had been chipped. She had many bald spots on her scalp.

[hubag bohol]

In her sworn affidavit, Baran cited incidents on July 2010 and June 2011 when Analiza Marzan allegedly tried to kill her. In the first incident, Analiza stabbed her in the arm with a pair of scissors while she was doing the laundry inside the toilet. Analiza tried to strangle her in the second incident while saying: "Why are you taking so long to die?"

Analiza only let go of her when Reynold intervened by asking his wife: "Do you really want to kill her? Where would you put her (body)?"

Baran also said she was detained inside the house so people would not see her. From April last year to April of this year, she was repeatedly punched in the eyes almost everyday. Her right eye is now totally blind, while the left eye is partially blind.

After she went blind, the couple then decided to let her go home. They said she was useless and could no longer be of any help. She was allowed to see her family last May but they warned her not to talk about her ordeal.

Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) Chief Atty. Persida Rueda-Acosta. said that they are planning to file eight counts of serious physical injuries and frustrated murder against the couple.

"She was treated like an animal," Acosta noted.

[chicogon]

Kung tinuod man galing ning balitaa, paskang gajong ning kalibutana...

[hubag bohol]

Since the couple hired her in 2007, Baran said she had been wounded with a knife, struck in the head with hard objects until she bled, punched in the eyes, singed with a flat iron, and force-fed with dead cockroaches.

 

[Ching]

  looja pod intawon

[statesville]

kasalbahis aning mga unggoya..   

[hubag bohol]

I really can't imagine nga naay mga tawo nga sayon-sayonon ra ang pagpasakit sa uban, especially in a regular manner over an extended period of time...

 

[islander]

purya gaba.  even an animal should not be treated this way.  if only there's a way to have this couple rot now instead of waiting for hell.

[islander]

kusog ta mangreklamo bahin ug pangdaog-daog ug mga domestic help nga ofw, di kaayo matagad ning gipangdaog-daog nga local.  naa pod ni daghan sa ato, di lang matagad ug publicity.  uy, gabriela, asa na mo?  magpili ra ba diay mog tabang ug demo-demo sa mga high profile cases nga ma-televised mo?

[islander]

akong officemate sa una... kun taparon mi, wa ra ko sa kiting sa iyang pagka-sweet.  ambot nga sa tinuoray di man gyod ko kasabot nganong di kahibawong magtarong ug estorya sa ilang household help.  puro singka, puro duda.  my goodness, lupig pay tawo nga magsigeg singka sa ilang irong kagiron.  as usual, people are not always what they seem...

[Lorenzo]

luoy pod intawn. mag ampo ko that justice will be given to this woman.

[islander]

our country demands a certain pay level and insurance from employers of our domestic help abroad.  we have no such requirements here.  if there are, no enforcement is made at all.  we are hypocrites.

[islander]

di gyod ko makakita ug pictures aning marzan couple, labi sa wife nga analiza.  kalami na lang unta ibansiwag dinhi ang iyang nawong as the monster that she is.

[islander]

an academic paper's look into this kind of domestic violence (i.e., domestic helper bashing); excerpts:

While some of the domestic workers are part of the urban working class, many of them are from impoverished rural backgrounds with little or no schooling.  For the rural, poor and illiterate migrant coming to the city, domestic service seems to provide an ideal solution to the problems of unemployment and lack of accommodation.  Driven by poverty and the lack of employment opportunities in the rural areas, these domestic workers are forced to earn some money to support their families - even if it entails being separated from them.  Their very desperation makes them all the more vulnerable.  Their need to keep a job, no matter how bad the conditions, forces them to remain in situations of extreme exploitation with no recourse to legal protection.

[islander]

Domestic workers, unlike other workers in the factories, offices and mines, are not protected by any of the Acts of Parliament that offers a form of protection to these workers.  These Acts control matters such as wages, hours of work and other working conditions.  The most common form of recruitment in domestic work is by word of mouth, the terms and conditions of employment are rarely recorded, thus leaving the domestic worker unprotected in cases of later disputes.  This feature of subordination of the worker and lack of protection, makes domestic workers vulnerable to arbitrary dismissal, deductions from wages for breakages or lost property, evictions from the backyard rooms, withholding of wages by the employer and many other unfair labour practices.

[islander]

Since there are no regulations controlling these matters, the contractual relationship between the worker and her employer is determined by the common law.  This law has been identified by Flint (1989) to be inadequate in that it reflects, as well as reinforces, the inherent inequalities between the employer and the employee. Haysom and Thompson (1986) also describe the common law contract as having freed the employer of any binding legal obligations concerning his/her employees.  Their criticisms are rooted in the assumption that a contract is voluntarily entered into by equal participants who both agree on terms of contractual exchange.  This assumption, however, does not apply in the case of domestic workers.  They are hardly in the position to dictate terms of employment contract requirements.  As Delport (1990) puts it, employers often have the sole and exclusive control over conditions of employment.  Entering into a contract could therefore not be in the interests of domestic workers, but to their detriment.

-from The Best Kept Secret: Violence against domestic workers
as presented by Mmatshilo Motsei
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa

full research paper at http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/papmmots.htm

[islander]

the paper is about violence against domestic helpers in south africa, as one can see.  but without citing the source, the reader can be led to believe that it might as well be a study on our local domestic employment situation.

[chicogon]

It goes the other way pod usahay... daghan pong domestic helpers nga manghinlo ra kadyot unja molaag na dayon sa ilang mga amigang domestic helpers kay mag tambay2x uban sa ilang mga amigong mga laki... ang ending, buntis!!! I've seen it many times... unya tungod sa pag dali-dali, dinalian pod ang trabaho like mangasunog ang mga gipang plantsa, etc. hehehe. I know a lot of households nga nagsigeg bagotbot ani na sitwasyon.

No law to protect the workers and no law to protect the victim employers (LoL) 

[chicogon]

akong officemate sa una... kun taparon mi, wa ra ko sa kiting sa iyang pagka-sweet.  ambot nga sa tinuoray di man gyod ko kasabot nganong di kahibawong magtarong ug estorya sa ilang household help.  puro singka, puro duda.  my goodness, lupig pay tawo nga magsigeg singka sa ilang irong kagiron.  as usual, people are not always what they seem...

bitaw, these people exist (sad to say)

[chicogon]

kusog ta mangreklamo bahin ug pangdaog-daog ug mga domestic help nga ofw, di kaayo matagad ning gipangdaog-daog nga local.  naa pod ni daghan sa ato, di lang matagad ug publicity.  uy, gabriela, asa na mo?  magpili ra ba diay mog tabang ug demo-demo sa mga high profile cases nga ma-televised mo?

Hahahaha, gikasab-an nas Gabriela.... kay moangay pog ma televised, bwahahaha!!!