The deep recession in Sri Lanka has hit homes, affecting family incomes, and a number of Filipino women married to Sri Lankans were not spared.
Remirose De Silva, founding leader of the Philippines Ladies Association in Sri Lanka, said lately there has been an increasing number of distressed calls from their members who experience domestic violence.
“Ang concern namin dito, hindi lahat ng mga Pilipino ay swerte sa pangangasawa. Marami na ngayon dito may domestic problem. Yung mga asawa kasi nila (mga Pinay) walang trabaho at nambubugbog pa and then, naglalasing pa,” De Silva told Business Mirror.
Since there is no Philippine Embassy in Colombo, the Filipinas turn to their group which was originally formed to help one another fulfill the documentary processes like passport and visa application.
“May mga tumatakas din. So, tinutulungan din naming tumakas,” De Silva, a Cagayan native, said.
“Minsan makakaratanggap ka na lang ng message kahit gabi, sabihin, Ate tulungan mo ako. Binubugbog ako ng asawa ko. Minsan nire-rescue namin, sabihin namin, ‘Punta ka sa police station.’ Tapos dun na lang namin puntahan.’”
There were also Filipino spouses who just got married with Sri Lankan nationals and confided to them about their marital problems, primarily due to cultural differences, she added.
“Kasi syempre kahit mali ang asawa mo, kumbaga Sri Lankan sila. Wala kang laban. So advice lang namin, ’Sumunod ka na lang.’ Kung kaya mong tumakas, takas ka,” she quipped.
There are around 700 Filipinos in the south Asian state, most of them married to Sri Lankans. The Philippine Ladies Association has more than 300 members.
She stressed though that there are also Filipino women “lucky” to be married with Sri Lankans who were supportive of them and not abusive.
Some were also married to Sri Lankans who are working overseas and are very generous that donate money to their organization.
Recently, they released 300,000 Sri Lankan rupees (Php 47,000) to members who need financial support, especially whose husbands were laid off from work and with children dependents.
De Silva said most Filipinas who are married to Sri Lankans prefer not to be repatriated despite the deep recession in Sri Lanka. Inflation is running at more than 50 percent in Sri Lanka.
“Basta madiskarte ka, mabubuhay ka dito,” she said as she noted that the mass protests recently in the streets of Colombo have somehow tempered since President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled abroad and resigned.
She said Filipinos are used to cooking using wood or charcoal, and planting vegetables in their backyard. Instead of taking public transport, she and her husband also resort to walking less than two kilometers to go to work or to stores to buy food. They also had to endure three hours of power outages everyday.
The main issue now to queue long hours just to fill their tanks, she said.
The Philippine Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which has consular jurisdiction in Sri Lanka, has offered free plane tickets to those who wished to be repatriated to the Philippines.
She said there were 25 members who signed up for repatriation, together with their children and Sri Lankan husband, which is expected to be sometime next month.
Those who chose to remain are also offered US$300 financial assistance. This apparently is more attractive to De Silva, as she pinned hopes that with election coming, the economy would pick up and supply of fuel would return to normal.