MANILA, Philippines?A nongovernment organization on Sunday called on the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to look into the case of a Filipino limousine driver in Saudi Arabia who should have been released from jail last year after serving time for drug possession.

The Pasay City-based Blas F. Ople Policy Center, a group pushing for the rights of local and migrant workers, said the DFA should help bring home Jonathan Bigas who finished serving his one-year prison sentence in August last year.

?His company provided him with an air ticket once his jail term ended so he could fly back to Manila. For some reason, the police held on to the ticket until it expired. Now, Bigas has spent [more than] two years in jail, exceeding his original sentence of one-year imprisonment,? Susan Ople, the center?s president, said.

?We?re calling on DFA and the Philippine Embassy to shoulder the cost of Jonathan?s airfare so he could return and be with his family here in Manila,? Ople said in a statement from Cebu City, where she spoke to public school teachers about the dangers of illegal recruitment and human trafficking.

Ople said Bigas earlier sent the group an e-mail appealing for help. She also met Bigas? wife, Tess, who went to the DFA main office on Oct. 14 only to be told by an official that her husband?s repatriation was not a priority.

?While they [DFA] do have funds, their priority as of now is to assist victims of maltreatment and abuse. He [the DFA official] advised me to look for a sponsor who [would] shoulder my husband?s airfare,? Ople quoted Bigas as saying.

She said that Bigas? wife and their relatives cannot afford to pay for Jonathan?s plane ticket, adding that they were next considering asking for help from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.

According to Ople, Bigas? woes began in September 2007 when the limousine service he was working for assigned him to drive his passenger, who was also a Filipino, to the post office to pick up a package.

The package came from Nueva Ecija.

When postal officials scanned the box, they found that it contained three grams of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride). Bigas and his passenger were arrested, charged and sentenced to a year in prison.

Ople said the Philippine Embassy should conduct an inventory of Filipino workers detained for various offenses in Saudi Arabia.

?How many OFWs are in the same situation as Bigas? How many should have been sent home but continue to languish in jail because they do not have the money to pay for their trip home? This is an injustice that deserves immediate rectification,? she said.

Ople noted that Bigas did not even know his passenger and was completely unaware of the package?s contents.

?He has already served his sentence not once, but twice. The government must help him regain his freedom and come home to be with his family,? she said.