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Jobless widow presses on in late husband’s fight to collect award
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Posted on Jun 03 2008
A jobless widow has continued the fight to collect the $8,059.34 in unpaid wages and damages awarded by the Department of Labor to her common-law husband who drowned early this year.
Marlou Aranda, 36, told Saipan Tribune that she is not losing hope that she will soon get the money owed her late husband, Roberto R. Raquepo.
“I am appealing that they should pay the money for the sake of my two young children,” said Aranda in Tagalog, referring to Raquepo’s former employer, Island Security Services Inc.
Then Labor Administrative Hearing Officer and now Labor director Barry Hirshbein had found ISS liable to pay many security guards, including Raquepo, unpaid wages and damages.
Aranda said her husband had been following up on the payment since the order was issued on June 12, 2007, and that in fact he was among the hundreds of alien workers who forwarded their Labor administrative orders that remained unpaid to the federal ombudsman’s office.
Raquepo worked on the island starting in 1992. Last Feb. 14, he drowned when he tried to retrieve his catch while fishing near the cliff line of Coral Ocean Point in Koblerville.
“He was supposed to pick up our 11-year-old son from school that afternoon but he never showed up because of what happened. And until now, our two-year-old son is still wondering where his father went,” said Aranda, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Since she is jobless and has a pending Labor case, Aranda said she and her children, ages 2 and 11, rely on the $233 they get in monthly food stamps, in addition to the help of family members.
“I am appealing to the Island Security Service owners or to anybody who can help us get the money owed my late husband. It’s very difficult to raise two young children and I don’t have a job,” she said.
Aranda was among hundreds of alien workers who showed up at the Sugar King Park’s Roundhouse last week where Labor personnel handed them small claim packets to collect their unpaid wages and damages.
