By Mikhail Flores, Karen Lema and Laurie Chen
MANILA/HONG KONG, Dec 1 (Reuters) – A Filipino domestic helper has been hailed as a hero after emerging from a deadly Hong Kong tower fire with her employer’s three-month-old baby and elderly mother.
Just a day after arriving in the city, Rhodora Alcaraz, 28, found herself trapped and alone with her new employer’s loved ones in the family’s smoke-filled Wang Fuk Court apartment before being rescued by firefighters just in time, according to accounts of her ordeal shared by her family and friends.
Alcaraz’s story has for some highlighted the enduring role of the city’s hundreds of thousands of domestic helpers who cook, clean and care for the young and elderly, often living in cramped spaces and earning modest wages in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
“I salute you, Rhodora, and all overseas foreign workers who continue to sacrifice for their families even while far from home,” Senator Imee Marcos, the sister of the Philippines president, said in a Facebook post on Sunday after visiting Alcaraz in hospital.
She posted a photo of Alcaraz lying in a hospital bed wearing a purple gown and a face mask and giving a thumbs-up.
“A true modern-day hero and a model of compassion and courage of Filipinos in a foreign land,” the government’s Overseas Workers Welfare Administration wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday, prompting hundreds of comments from well-wishers.
Her employer’s baby and mother were also admitted to intensive care but were in a stable condition, her employer Kanon Chung said in a Facebook post.
FORMER EMPLOYER PRAYED FOR MIRACLE
Panicked audio messages Alcaraz sent to her sister during Wednesday’s blaze – that killed at least 151 people – went viral after they were shared online by family and friends trying to locate her in the chaotic aftermath.
“I’m feeling very weak. I can’t breathe,” she said in one of the clips, sobbing and struggling to speak.
Rhoda Lynn Dayo, Alcaraz’s former employer, was among those trying to reach people in Hong Kong to help establish her whereabouts, she said.
“I truly expected that she wouldn’t be found anymore. So I prayed: Please God … Perform a miracle, Lord,” she said.
Alcaraz, known by the nickname Jackie, had cared for Dayo’s children from the age of 17 for more than four years back in the Philippines.
She was so trusted by the family that Dayo said she was comfortable leaving her children with Alcaraz even when she had to travel to the U.S.
“The way she cared for the kids was different – there was real love … I don’t doubt that she would put her life on the line for the child she was caring for,” Dayo said.
Nine Indonesian domestic workers and one Filipino are confirmed among the dead at Wang Fuk Court, the city’s deadliest fire in more than 75 years. More than 40 people remain missing.
There are around 368,000 foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong, according to the latest figures, accounting for nearly a tenth of the workforce. The majority come from the Philippines and Indonesia, and in recent years there have been increasing numbers from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand.
Like many of her peers, Alcaraz – who has eight siblings – decided to work overseas to earn higher wages she could send back home to support her family.
She worked for two years in Qatar, before taking up the job in Hong Kong.
“We are poor. Our father is just a fisherman, that is why she decided to work abroad to help the family,” Alcaraz’s younger sister, Raychell Loreto, told Reuters.
“We are so proud of our sister,” she added.
(Reporting by Mikhail Flores, Adrian Portugal and Karen Lema in Manila and Laurie Chen in Hong Kong; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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