Losing the workforce

Losing the workforce

While the nation suffers from an acute lack of schoolteachers and deteriorating English proficiency, Thai students are learning English – from thousands of Filipino teachers. A recent report said about 3,000 Filipinos are currently teaching in Thailand, receiving salaries ranging from the equivalent of P17,000 to P43,000 a month. That’s higher than the basic monthly pay of government doctors in this country — enough incentive for Filipinos to move to a neighboring country that was once at the same development stage as the Philippines, but which has since inched ahead.

It’s not just Thailand that has become a destination for Filipino teachers. Filipinos are teaching various subjects including English in countries such as Cambodia and even in the United States. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the annual increase in the number of schoolteachers still cannot keep up with the exploding student population. A number of those recruited aren’t up to the job, unable even to detect grammatical and factual errors in textbooks — errors that are painstakingly pointed out by the bane of substandard textbook manufacturers, Antonio Calipjo Go.

The exodus of qualified educators is bound to continue as the lack of decent employment opportunities persists. This is the dark side of those glowing economic figures about massive remittances from Filipinos working overseas. There aren’t enough decent jobs to absorb the country’s growing workforce. As recent studies have shown, unemployment is particularly high among new graduates.

The government is providing career counseling so more students will take courses that are in demand in the job market, such as those in information and communication technology. But even when there is a big job demand, such as in education and health services, Filipinos are still leaving for abroad, lured mainly by higher pay. Even if the cost of living is higher in many of these other countries, Filipino workers know they will still have enough left over to send back home. Others leave to escape conflict areas or simply to enjoy the better quality of life that more progressive countries offer. Unless the Philippines can match those attractions, the nation will continue to lose its workforce.

The Achilles’ heel of RP’s

The Achilles’ heel of RP’s

Of the estimated 8 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) worldwide, women, who outnumber the men, are the most vulnerable to employers’ abuse and exploitation. They are the Achilles’ heel of the country’s migration program.

Female OFWs have spread all over the globe to find work. Nurses and caregivers abound in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and other rich nations suffering from the acute shortage of medical workers. South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore teem with women factory workers. Domestic helpers are found in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Italy and the Middle East.

Many DHs are exposed to employers’ maltreatment, nonpayment or underpayment of salary, contract substitution, long working hours and sexual abuse. The videoed rape of “Melissa,” a maid in Saudi Arabia, by her employer, underscores the impunity with which depraved employers treat their Filipino maids.

When I was in Singapore as labor attaché, a Filipino maid, who lost her mind following an attempt by her employer, jumped to her death from the sixth floor of a hospital where I had taken her for observation and treatment.

Many Filipino maids are victims of illegal recruitment by unscrupulous placement firms.

Their recruiters list them in their employment contracts not as domestic helpers but as waiters, cashiers or any category of worker to conceal their violations of new rules governing the employment of domestic helpers regarding their; prescribed minimum salary of $400 and the nonpayment of placement fees.

Three typical victims of this false representation recently ran away from their employers in Dubai, sought refuge at the Abu Dhabi Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration Center and came home on their own airplane tickets. Their stories of woe are almost similar.

Analiza Gille Laroga of San Carlos City, Pangasinan, was recruited last December by the RML placement agency with offices at the Abad Santos building in Paco, Manila. Her contract, processed by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration under the Lucky International Management Services, listed her as cashier to work at the Alaham Coffee House and Cafeteria in Dubai with a salary of $300.

She arrived in Dubai last February 7 and worked not as a cashier but as maid of an Egyptian employer, Mona Shab Bad Ali. She worked 18 hours a day, with very little sleep, little food (mostly noodles) with a salary of 600 dirhams (about P7,500) a month.

She escaped last June 17 and went straight to the Philippine Consulate in Dubai. From there she was taken to the Abu Dhabi OWWA Center where she stayed until her return home last August 8.

She claimed that her mother paid the agency P8,000 as placement fee and P26,000 for her ticket coming home. She is seeking the refund of her placement fee, the cost of her air ticket, and the payment of her unpaid salary with the POEA.

Lilia de Guzman Pangan, 44, of Fairview, Quezon City, has a similar story. She was recruited by RML as a maid but was listed in her contract as a repacker at the Sea Shore Fast Food in Dubai. She worked as a maid of Omair Shalaf Aseeq Baeed Khalef in Dubai from February 7 to May 13, this year.

Underpaid, maltreated and given little food by her employer, she ran away and was taken to the OWWA Center in Abu Dhabi. She came home last July 13 on a ticket paid for by her son working in Jeddah. She wants a refund of P15,000 as her placement fee and the ticket cost amounting to P17,000.

Another maid, Mary Jane Soloriano Albay, was recruited by the Jamal Human Resource International last December for Ahmad Salem Mubarak Humaid in Abu Dhabi at a monthly salary of $200. But she was paid only 600 dirhams or P7,800 a month. She complained of long working hours, only one meal a day and maltreatment, She ran away after six months working for her employer and came home last July 21.

All three were all praise for the Abu Dhabi labor staff—labor attaché Nasser Munder, welfare officer Evelyn Yllanes, administrative assistant Win­nie Monteverde and Rene Sorio, a Filipino member of UAE police security who acted as center coordinator—for treating them well during their stay at the OWWA Center.

The POEA should look into the illegal recruitment of these workers with a view to canceling the licenses of the placement agencies concerned to prevent other workers from falling victims to their illegal operations. Administrative sanctions will be swift and decisive.

Opening a can of worms

Opening a can of worms

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita yesterday said economic managers and mon-etary authorities will look into the possibility of giving "special" rates for the dollars remitted by overseas workers. What is there to study?

The managers and Bangko Sentral officials do not even have to review their textbook in Economics 101 to shoot down the proposal out of hand. With Gloria Arroyo pandering to every politically powerful block, introducing multiple exchange rates is a foolhardy step down a precipitous slope. Let’s not even think of the economic consequences of multiple exchange rates. Let’s just imagine the effects of giving the corrupt administration additional powers to reward/punish economic units through multiple peso/dollar rates.

Let’s not fool ourselves with the phrase "special rates." It means OFWs will be given the privilege of exchanging their dollars for more pesos than the rate set, as determined by the market. We are familiar with the plaints of OFWs and their dependents. They used to get up to P56 for every dollar. Now, it’s only P45 to the dollar. This means that if an OFW is sending home $500 a month, his family is now getting P5,725 less than it used to. Clearly, OFW families are losers in the strengthening of the peso.

But that’s only one side of the coin. The other side is that OFW families are consumers, too. The stronger peso has resulted in the taming of inflation. Imported raw materials, especially fuel, are relatively cheaper. And this has a direct impact on the stabilization of the prices of basic commodities.

OFWs are borrowers, too, and they, as much as everybody else surely, must have benefited from lower interest rates. It’s now easier to buy television sets, DVDs, karaoke machines and other creature comforts on installment. Buying or building houses is also more affordable now with lower mortgage rates.

And surely OFW families must also be benefiting from what the government boasts as higher social spending in the wake of easier debt payments as a result of a stronger peso. These social dividends are enjoyed by families whose bread winners are not taxed on their income in the first place.

And after the OFWs, who’s next in line for "special" exchange rates? The exporters who at the moment are also being squeezed by their lower peso earnings on the same dollar receipts? And which specific exporters - agricultural producers, processors and traders? And producers of which specific crops – coconut and its products, sugar, bananas, pineapples, papayas, asparagus, etc.?

Before we know it, every interest group would be lining up at the Palace to plead for inclusion in the list of "special rate" beneficiaries.

It would be dollar quota of the 1950s and 1960s in reverse.

Wouldn’t it be rich, the current administration closing its regime of thievery by going back to a discarded system?

Overseas Filipino slaves in Iraq

Overseas Filipino slaves in Iraq

POSTED on YouTube last July 26 were video clips from a United States congressional hearing on the controversies spawned by the $600-million US Embassy construction in Baghdad. Two of the testimonies refer to the circumstances under which Filipino workers were brought into the work site by their employer, the First Kuwaiti Company, and the horrible conditions in which they were made to work. Filipinos who still care might want to view these testimonies, and weep in anger.

Roy Mayberry, one of the witnesses, is an American medical technician who was recruited by a US contractor and assigned to work as an emergency medic for First Kuwaiti in the US Embassy construction site. He quit his job after only five days, unable to stand seeing the sub-human conditions to which the foreign workers were subjected. His job, he said, was to provide emergency treatment to people who were injured at work. But there was no way he could function in a situation where workers were treated as dispensable labor, and made to work without basic safety equipment like shoes, gloves, hard hats and harnesses. The workers--mostly Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis and some Africans--had to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with only a short break on Fridays for prayers. They were constantly on their toes to avoid being verbally and physically abused, or fined with huge wage deductions.

Mayberry recalls the day he reported to the Kuwaiti company in Kuwait city, preparatory to his being shipped out to Baghdad where he was assigned. Fifty-one Filipino nationals were in the same room with him, also waiting for their documents and identification cards. The Filipinos told him they were bound for Dubai where they expected to work in hotels. Their plane tickets clearly indicated their next stop: Dubai. To his surprise, a manager of the company told him to keep an eye on them as they were all taking the same flight to Baghdad. He told the manager that these men had tickets for Dubai. The manager first told him that the Dubai tickets were just a cover since Philippine passports banned travel to Iraq. But when Mayberry pressed that the Filipinos were expecting to work in Dubai, the manager told him to be quiet and not to tell them they were headed for Baghdad.

Sure enough, as soon as the pilot of the Baghdad-bound plane announced the flight's destination, all hell broke loose. The Pinoy passengers screamed and insisted on leaving the aircraft. They took their seats only after the security detail in the aircraft pulled out his gun. "I believe these men were kidnapped by the First Kuwaiti Company to work on the US Embassy in Baghdad," Mayberry emphatically told the congressional committee. These men could do nothing, he said, but accept their fate. Their passports had been taken away from them in Kuwait.

Mayberry's testimony was corroborated by John Owens, who was hired by the same company to work as a general foreman in the embassy construction project. Unlike Mayberry, who left after only five days, Owens stayed on the site from November 2005 to June 2006--a period of eight months. Owens recounted the abusive treatment of "third-country nationals" at the embassy work site, and wondered how slave working conditions could be allowed in what was supposed to be an American project.

On cross-examination, Owens told the committee of the repeated attempts of the workers to escape from the site. "One night, 17 Filipinos scaled the fence and fled, hoping to find jobs elsewhere within the Green Zone (the area secured by US forces). They were soon rounded up and brought back." Apparently, the Kuwaiti company threatened to file suits against other companies that would take any of these workers whose passage to Iraq they had paid for.

The events recounted in the testimonies of Mayberry and Owens took place more than a year ago. Their story was never reported in our local papers, as far as I know. No one knows exactly what happened to the 51 Filipinos. It is likely that more Filipino workers found their way to the US Embassy construction site by the same system, their passage facilitated at every point by a network of unscrupulous recruiters, government officials, airport and immigration personnel, security forces, and layers upon layers of private contractors.

Their saga is replicated on a daily basis by hundreds of other desperate Filipinos--domestic helpers, entertainers, unskilled workers who fall victim to human trafficking syndicates. Many of them end up as indentured labor or as prostitutes in faraway lands, with neither passports nor access to any form of legal protection. Philippine authorities know about their plight, but they often choose to play blind to their predicament, mostly out of fear of creating a diplomatic issue.

In the civilized world, the first duty of a responsible nation-state is to protect the rights of its citizens wherever they are. It is a duty that has become astoundingly complex in an age of rapid global travel and migration. One might expect that a country like the Philippines, which has deployed millions of its nationals for employment in more than 190 countries, would have the basic sense to strengthen its institutional capacity to keep track of where they are and to protect their interests. But, alas, in the more than 30 years that we have been exporting our people, we have seen nothing but the government's benign neglect and insatiable greed for remittances.

Pinoys abroad are abreast of local news

Pinoys abroad are abreast of local news

THANKS to satellite communications feeding live television broadcasts to major cities around the world, and the ubiquitous mobile phones (cellphones to us), Pinoys abroad are kept abreast with news at home.

In some major cities in the US and Canada I visited recently, Filipino communities were up-to-date with major developments at home.

Their main interest, as expected, is politics. For example, the SoNA of President Arroyo was well-received by Filipino-Americans in these cities. However, there are some who readily disagreed with what she enumerated as her achievements in 2006.

Next to politics, showbiz’ happenings occupy Pinoy’s leisure hours at home. Typical of Filipinos pastimes they are all in the latest gossips in the local movieland.

The Filipino Channel (TFC) appears to have more subscribers than GMA’s Channel 7. The patronage includes Willie Revillame’s noontime show, TV Patrol and ANC news programs.

I would say that Eat Bulaga and 24-Oras news hour of Channel 7 are getting an increasing number of following and subscribers (average monthly subscription is $ 30).

One advantage of ABS-CBN is that it is now offering to Pinoys who are TFC subscribers money-transfer services, with service fees much lower than bank rates. The broadcasting company is likely to hit pay dirt here.

And the ubiquitous cellphones? Believe it or not, cellphone cards are selling like the proverbial cakes in Filipino stores in major cities in the US and Canada. Texting to friends and relatives back home has become a pre-occupation of Fil-Ams.

In fact, what Pinoys are now saying is that it was they who taught Americans how to send short messages (including the use of unique abbreviations). To friends from their cellphones.

And yes, it has now become easier for Pinoys to communicate with their families here with the use of the cellphone as to when is the next Balikbayan box is to arrive here.

CELLPHONE ROAMING RIP-OFF. When Globe wireless telecom advertised in different newspapers last June about its prepaid roaming World Widest Service, I took advantage of it thinking that it would be convenient for one who was to be out of the country for more than a month. There was no such international service. Instead I was fleeced of P700.

While in the US and in Canada, I received only one call and three TXT messages from the Philippines. Worse, I could not reply either by calls or TXT.

Instead, I received nearly two dozens of "Welcome to the USA/Canada" messages and other "advisories" from Globe. Each of those meaningless messages, I understand, were charged to me.

Arriving here last Monday, I immediately dialed Globe for a de-activation of that supposedly worldwide (in 100 countries, "daw") calling and texting service. Believe it or not, this is what Globe answers:

"Sorry, your request cannot be processed. No active roaming yet."

Help, National Telecommunication Commission!

Airline e-ticket scam victims seek police assistance

Airline e-ticket scam victims seek police assistance

Daisy Mandap

Two groups of Filipinos defrauded by syndicates behind an apparently massive airline e-ticket scam have filed complaints with the police, after the Consulate issued an appeal for victims to come forward.

Vice Consul Val Roque has welcomed the news relayed to him by The Sun, which first reported the victims' plight. "This will be helpful in tracking down the people behind the scam," says Roque.

He hopes Cebu Pacific, the airline often used by the syndicate to con travelers, would also respond to the Consulate's request for help in preventing the fraud.

In a letter sent to Cebu Pacific president Lance Gokongwei last month, Consul General Alejandrino A. Vicente asked the airline to issue "advisories and others measures" to help stop the fraud.

Roque also spoke with the airline's station manager, Liza Anareta earlier, to ask for the same thing.

"So far we have not received a response from them," said Roque.

But even as Cebu Pacific appears set to downplay the incidents, 35 Filipinos who fell prey to the e-ticket syndicates are determined to go after the perpetrators.

One group is represented by Malone Bicua, whose family's plight was one of those cited byCongen Vicente in his letter to Gokongwei.

In her complaint to the police, Bicua named her own sister-in-law, Elnora B. Sanorio and and the latter's husband, Noel, as the ones who tricked them into buying apparently spurious e-tickets with Cebu Pacific.

"I really want them to answer for what they did," Bicua told The Sun. "Imagine sila pa ang galit, at sinasabing biktima din sila."

The couple, when pressed to refund the money paid by Bicua's family for replacement tickets, supposedly blamed a certain agent in Macau as the one who profited from the scam.

"But I was not told any of these before," said Bicua. "We paid cash for the tickets, and I did not know that a credit card was used to buy them in turn."

Another group of 27 complainants is represented by Antonio Coronel, who works at Chek Lap Kok as an engineer, and is president of the Aviation Professionals Association of the Philippines, Inc.

Among the complainants is Coronel's son, six of his officemates, and their respective families.

"I really want to push this (complaint) because a lot of people have already been victimized, and many of them are hesitant to come forward," says Coronel.

In his complaint, Coronel identified four people who allegedly worked together to defraud his group: Remedios Cabigas, Daday Conchas, Ferdinand S. Fernandez and a certain Jake Massimo, who apparently was the one who made the e-ticket bookings.

Coronel says he did not think at first that something was amiss because his officemates who got their etickets from the same group had managed to travel to and from the Philippines without a problem.

But things turned bad when Coronel was not allowed to board his flight for Manila in April. He had to pay $1,200 to get a new ticket. Coming back, the same thing happened to him and his son, and they had to shell out more than Php19,000 to be able to leave as scheduled.

The other complainants suffered the same fate, although two families did manage to use them in traveling to Manila, but were unable to use them on their return to Hong Kong.

According to Coronel, he first got in touch with Cabigas by email when told that she was the source of cheap e-tickets bought by some of his colleagues earlier.

Cabigas in turn referred them to Conchas, who emailed instructions for them to send the payment of $800 per ticket to Fernandez in Macau. The e-tickets were forwarded directly to the victims by email.

Massimo's name came up only recently, when Coronel pressed Cabigao to refund the money paid by his group for the etickets.

Massimo, using the email address jakerize@yahoo.com, told Coronel in a message sent on June 25 that it was Cebu Pacific's fault that e-tickets were deemed invalid.

"...am very sorry, but it wasnt our fault then, there was a problem with cebu machine, that is why such problem happens, cuz i was the one who book your ticket then, but now it is better, so if you want to book as much now you can email me then i book for you, and will book you for a better price," says Massimo.

When told by Coronel that his group did not want another booking, but wanted to claim back the payments they made to Cabigas, Massimo sent another e-mail on July 2, saying he never received the payments.

"I Book for her but she didn't pay me yet up till now and I decided to leave the money for her even with her other agent. since then she has been running fro me when ever i called she never pick my call..."

Coronel said that a trace of Massimo's email address showed it was opened somewhere in Nigeria.

Filipina links in-laws scam

By Smiley D. Julve

A Filipina sought police assistance on July 4 over what she believes is a case of deception by her in-laws for selling her invalid return e-tickets for Cebu Pacific flights. Malone L. Bicua took the step after an amicable settlement arranged by the Consulate failed.

Bicua also reported to the Immigration Department a possible violation by her sister-in-law, Elnora B. Sanorjo and her husband, Noel, for acting as sub-agents, in violation of their restricted visas as domestic helpers in Hong Kong.

Early this year, Malone vouched the idea of bringing her second daughter, aged 13, to Hong Kong. But when her relatives found out about this, they decided to pitch in so that their favorite nieces and nephews could also come to Hong Kong.

Elnora and Noel even promised to pay for the airfare of Malone's husband, Wenceslao, and offered her cheap air tickets costing $950 for each child.

Wenceslao and the children had no problem coming to Hong Kong on Apr. 18, but found out that their return tickets were no longer valid when they had to rebook it on June 12 at the Cebu Pacific's office in Tsim Sha Tsui.

According to the airline's agent, Michael Choi, the credit card used to book the tickets was no longer good.

This surprised Malone as she had paid her in-laws cash for the tickets. She claims to have paid her $4,000 share in the airfare while the balance and other visa fee requirement amounting to $4,330 was contributed by her husband's relatives in the Philippines was also given in cash to her in-laws.

She says she found out later that the tickets had been paid by credit card by an agent in Macau. As a result, Malone had to use the money allocated for her children's tuition fees to pay for the $5,750 ticket of her family so they could go back home. There was no time for second thoughts as the children were already late for their classes.

After much prodding, her in-laws allegedly transferred $1,300 to Malone's account to shoulder Wenceslao's airfare. But Malone wants them to pay at least half of what she paid for.

At the Consulate, Elnora verbally agreed to give back Malone's $2,000 and promised to produce the money in a week's time. But weeks later, Malone said Noel told her on the phone: "Hindi kami magbabayad. Biktima din kami."

Noel's argument is based on the fact that two of his children were also unable to use the e-tickets he and Elnora had bought for them, and had to buy new tickets as well.

But Malone is not appeased, and is determined to make her in-laws pay for what she believes they owe her.

The failure of her family to board their return flight as scheduled was only the latest in a series of setbacks they suffered after buying the e-tickets.

The original plan was for Wenceslao and their children to come here on Mar. 31. The family had obtained passports, and even the two-month tourist visas they would need for an extended stay. But the night before they were due to leave, they were reportedly told that they could not board their scheduled flight the next day.

She only followed up the matter on Apr. 2 and was told by Noel, "Wala kaming aabonohan." Startled, Malone allegedly replied that she just wanted her family to come to Hong Kong.

She was then informed of another booking on Apr. 11 which was re-scheduled the next day, but that, too, did not materialize. In between, she was also asked whether she could pay an additional $250 for each child so that they could fly via Philippine Airlines or to pay an extra $50 because the travel agency claimed to have received so little a commission from the transaction.

Finally, Malone's husband received an e-mail detailing a Cebu Pacific itinerary for him and his five children. They were scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong on Apr. 18 and depart on June 18.

Just to be sure, Wenceslao confirmed this with the Cebu Pacific office in Manila and the staff who attended to him even printed out transaction receipts and assured him that they would not have any problems with their flight. Because of this, Malone was also advised to check whether Cebu Pacific could also be held liable for all her trouble as the airline confirmed the validity of the roundtrip air tickets and even printed out transaction receipts to that effect.

The only good that came out of the situation, said Malone, was the opportunity given to her to be with her family in Hong Kong. "At least nakarating sila," she said. What happened, she described, was "a dream of a lifetime." Unfortunately, her dream came at the expense of unplanned debts and family rift.

Filcom rejects ConGen transfer

Filcom rejects ConGen transfer

The Sun

Community leaders who gathered for the Leaders' Forum on July 8 expressed support for the Consulate's rejection of a proposal to transfer the Consulate from its present premises in Admiralty to Sheung Wan.

"We are committed...to stay in the United Centre," said Consul Vic Dimagiba, following numerous prodding from leaders to talk about the Consulate's position on the matter.

The issue was first reported in The Sun, which managed to gather voluminous documents showing how certain groups have been trying to get the Department of Foreign Affairs to agree to terminate the so-called lease-purchase contract over the United Centre property.

Under the deal signed five years ago, the Consulate agreed to purchase the premises for $71.71 million plus interest, with 15 months advance rental amounting to more than $10 million being paid upfront.

By the end of the 12-year lease-purchase deal, the DFA will own the property. The registered landlord (or "confirmor" as stated in documents with the Land Registry), Bel Trade Investment Holdings Limited, has no right to terminate the deal at will, unless the DFA defaults on the monthly payments.

In exchange for agreeing to set aside the United Centre contract, the DFA is being offered another lease-purchase deal over eight floors of the Guangdong Finance Building in Sheung Wan. Bel Trade is also offering to rename the building "Philippine Center."

More than two years since the offer was first made, the Consulate, through Consul General Alejandrino A. Vicente, recently recommended that the offer be rejected, saying it will be highly disadvantageous to the government.

Despite this, migrant groups are saying the issue should have been presented to the community.

"Sana magkaroon ito ng paglilinaw at sana hindi kami magising isang araw na naibenta na ito," said Rowena dela Cruz of Migrante.

"Maapektuhan ba kami o hindi, maganda man yan o hindi dapat alam namin," she said.

"Ano ba ang dahilan?," asked Albert Laconsay of the Filipino Migrants Workers Union.

Still others even pushed: "May matitipid ba? Saan mapupunta? Sa bayan ba o sa bulsa ng iilan? Magkano ang porsiyento ni Ablan?"

Consul Dimagiba was straight to the point.

"This proposal is unsolicited. The Consulate did not seek this proposal. This was thrust on to the Philippine Consulate and the Philippine government."

He explained that the Consulate's position after doing its own study is that the offer is disadvantageous to the Philippine government and added, "This property is for us to own."

However, the final answer remains to be seen as the decision rests on the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Alberto Romulo, who has yet to approve or reject the Consulate's recommendation.

"But we have made a strong representation to Secretary Romulo. This proposal as it is should not be accepted," said Consul Dimagiba who gave his piece of advice:

"But, as I understand that the Filipino community is very concerned about it. At tulad ng naisulat na may interest group na nagla-lobby ng issue, kayo din mag-lobby [against it]," he added

As if acting on cue, Laconsay stood up to announce that they can form the Coalition Against Bentahan which was received with a loud applause.