Road safety seminar held for Pinoys in Saudi Arabia
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 10/27/2009 10:32 PM
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DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia – More than a hundred Filipinos based in Saudi Arabia attended a seminar on road safety following the increasing number of traffic accidents sometimes involving Pinoys in the kingdom.
"It helped me a lot by enhancing my knowledge to avoid and prevent traffic accidents. Also, after this seminar, I could share my knowledge to my co-workers and friends,” said Engineer Ramon Aguilar, a project interface manager in Khurais.
Aguilar traveled for three hours just to join the seminar conducted by the Philippine Society of Safety Practitioners (PSSP) in Dhahram.
Engineer Rey Barraca, keynote speaker in the seminar recalled an accident that involved Filipino electrical foreman Jun Apuya, last August. The accident, he said, killed Apuya and injured one of his passengers.
"The Philippine Society of Safety Practitioners Middle East Region, conducted this seminar workshop due to so many accidents, especially our kababayans, the Filipino workers working in the eastern province and the entire kingdom of Saudi Arabia, involved in traffic and vehicular accidents,” Barraca told ABS-CBN Middle East News Bureau.
Barraca said they often receive information about road accidents involving Filipinos which were not reported in the newspapers.
Records from the Assistance to Nationals Section of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh revealed that 76 Filipinos were killed in road traffic accidents in 2008 while 51 deaths were reported from January to August of this year.
The World Health Organization said Saudi Arabia is one of the countries which have the most number of road accidents. The Kingdom recorded 435,234 total traffic accidents in 2008 where 6,358 were killed and 36,025 were injured.
“We hope that through this program, our safety practitioners can help all our OFWs working here in the kingdom to be safe especially when driving,” said PSSP president, Engineer Greg Crisollphone. Florante Catanus, ABS-CBN Middle East News Bureau
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