Saudi-Filipino children abandoned by their Saudi fathers are getting help. A member of the Saudi royal family is donating a substantial fund to help the children, said the founder of a program that is voluntarily supporting the children. “A member of the royal family, after learning the sad plight of the children, is setting aside a fund to help these poor, abandoned, and forgotten children of Saudi men,” said Najeeb A.R. Al-Zamil, a social activist and writer and founder of the Back to the Root Program, a non-governmental organization which has been supporting the children of Saudis from Filipino mothers for many years. “The support will pave the way towards freeing these children from the quagmire of poverty, and a life that is miserable, a life that they don't deserve,” Zamil said. He declined to identify the member of the royal family, but only offered to say that she is a princess who requested anonymity. The Back to the Root Program has identified 47 offsprings of Saudi men. These children have all the documentations, such as marriage contracts between their Filipina mothers and the Saudi husbands, as well as birth certificates, letters, photos, and personal effects left behind by the Saudi men, to prove their identity. “We have preserved the documents for these 47 children,” said Zamil. “But there are hundreds more children of Filipinas and Saudi men who have nothing to show for their the identity because the fathers, when they abandoned and left the children for Saudi Arabia, took all the evidence linking them (to these marriages) so that they cannot be traced.” Zamil said he personally knows some of the fathers, many of whom are from prominent families. The princess who is funding the support program for the forgotten children has requested that the caring of the children be under the direct supervision of the Back to the Root Program. The program must also ensure that the children get an education, and their health to be looked after. She also asked the program to make efforts to link them back to the tradition and culture of their rightful country. “It will be a very difficult task bringing them back to embrace – to appreciate – the culture and tradition of their father, and much more so that of Islam,” said Zamil. “These children were raised in a very different environment.” “My group will try its very best,” he added. Zamil expressed sadness that one of the children, Fatima, will not be able to benefit from the program's support now that it is getting funds from a member of the royal family. “I met Fatima when she was just 12 years old,” he said. “She approached me while I was in a hotel in Manila sitting with some Saudi businessmen, and offered her service. She said her job was to provide massages. “I was struck by her facial features, which were clearly Arab. When I asked her nationality, she said she was a Filipino.” When Zamil further questioned her about her parents, she finally said her father was Saudi. He then asked her if he could meet her mother, and she agreed. “Fatima took me to a squatter area in Manila where she and her mother shared a one-room dwelling they called home,” said Zamil. “Again, I was surprised to see that the features of Fatima's mother were not those of a Filipina, but an Arab.” He asked the mother her parentage. With hesitation, she said her father was also a Saudi. She was 35 years old then. Two years after the encounter with Fatima and her mother, Zamil, who was a frequent traveler to Manila, asked Fahad Al-Khuzeim, a fellow Saudi and a resident of Manila for more than 20 years, about the condition of Fatima and her mother. Khuzeim told him that Fatima had passed away, and that the mother also died a few months later. Both were victims of AIDS. Two other young daughters of Saudi fathers are now receiving special care of the program. Salma, a teenager, had appeared in TV advertising, and she works in night clubs in Manila. The other is a young woman who works as a secretary to the ambassador of a Gulf country. “These two girls are very talented, and we want to start our program with them,” said Zamil. “We have had contacts with them, and Khuzeim, our contacts in Manila, has been told to monitor them. There are other sons and daughter of Saudi fathers we are looking after, mostly from the 47 children we have directly identified.” Among the tasks of the Back to the Root Program is to link the children with their Saudi families. Zamil said he is afraid of the outcome when these children are finally given the chance to meet their fathers and the Saudi families they are part of. “There could be rejections and denials,” he said. “It will be devastating for these children.” __
