An overseas Filipino worker (OFW) mom wants badly to return to the Philippines but the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) can’t help her because she does not have proof that she is the mother of the two children who will be going with her.

Cherry Ann Gambol, 32, was a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia.

“I requested last year to return to the Philippines because I no longer had anyone to help me with the expenses for my two children. They asked for proof that they were my children but I could not show any proof because I never underwent an ultrasound because I couldn’t afford it,” she said.

In 2020, she ran away with two other Filipinos who were under the same employer. They all complained to their foreign agency, but the agency said their employer was kind.

But Gambol said that “every year the new helpers complain because they were being hurt and not fed.”

Due to her dire situation, she and her fellow domestic helpers escaped from the third floor using a rope. She added that, “I thought I would die after I fell from the second floor.”

After that day, they asked the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Saudi Arabia for help and they stayed at Bahay Kalinga, the help center for Filipino runaways.

However, she left Bahay Kalinga because after three months she still was not able to go home to the Philippines. She then got pregnant twice by another Filipino.

Presently, she is unemployed but accepts part-time jobs to be able to buy diapers and milk for her two children. She said the situation is hard for her, that is why she wants to go home.