{"id":23296,"date":"2025-12-27T01:45:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=23296"},"modified":"2025-12-27T01:45:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:45:35","slug":"maid-aged-72-who-overstayed-in-singapore-for-34-years-jailed-fined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=23296","title":{"rendered":"Maid, aged 72, who overstayed in Singapore for 34 years jailed, fined"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">When her work permit was cancelled, a domestic helper chose not to leave Singapore. Instead, she overstayed her visa for 34 years, turning herself in this year at the age of 72.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Flordeliza M. Cordeta was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $3,000 on Dec 23 after pleading guilty to one count of violating immigration laws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Court documents revealed that Cordeta was granted a work permit on Oct 27, 1989, which was later cancelled on July 30, 1991.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">She only turned herself in on Dec 5, after illegally staying in Singapore for 34 years, four months, and five days.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"mb-[-8px] mt-lg font-primary text-22 font-bold leading-1.5\">Employer failed to pay foreign worker levy<\/h3>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">According to <span><a class=\"text-primary-500 hover:underline\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zaobao.com.sg\/news\/singapore\/story20251224-8010311\" target=\"_blank\">Shin Min Daily News<\/a><\/span>, Cordeta was one of two domestic helpers from the Philippines who were recently convicted for overstaying their visas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Their work permits were both cancelled after their employer failed to pay the mandatory foreign worker levy to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">The other helper, 49-year-old Jo Ann Querabu Balbin, overstayed in the Republic for 16 and a half years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">On Dec 23, she was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $2,000 after pleading guilty to one count of violating immigration laws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Investigations revealed that Balbin obtained a two-year work permit on April 7, 2009, to work as a domestic helper in Singapore. However, the permit was almost immediately cancelled on April 24 after her employer failed to pay the required foreign worker levy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Despite this, she continued to stay in Singapore illegally for 16 years, six months and five days, finally turning herself in on Dec 4 this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">During the prosecution, the judge considered imposing the maximum six-month jail term for both women, with caning replaced by fines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Neither women were represented by lawyers. Both expressed remorse to the court and admitted wrongdoing, and also requested a lighter sentence.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"border-t border-primary-200 mt-xl mb-md\"\/>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-col gap-md py-md xl:flex-row xl:items-center\"><span class=\"font-primary text-18 font-semibold leading-1.2 text-black\">Get more of Stomp&#8217;s latest updates by following us on:<\/span><\/div>\n<hr class=\"border-t border-primary-200 mt-xl mb-md\"\/>\n<p>Join the conversation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stomp.sg\/trending-now\/maid-aged-72-who-overstayed-singapore-34-years-jailed-fined\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When her work permit was cancelled, a domestic helper chose not to leave Singapore. Instead, she overstayed her visa for 34 years, turning herself in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}