What’s PBBM waiting for? #OFWsLebanon

Trying to understand why the prez does not seem to think it’s urgent that we evacuate our OFWs from Lebanon ASAP. Dahil kaya umaasa pa siya na maaawat pa ang Israel bombings sa lalong madaling panahon, at mawawala na ang panganib? O dahil ba ayaw niyang mapilitan na umuwi pati ang mga OFW na malayo pa sa panganib o ayaw umuwi dahil wala namang uuwiang hanapbuhay dito? Whatever. It behooves him to order ASAP the rescue of the thousands na matagal nang humihingi ng saklolo.

Evacuate OFWs out of war zone
Inquirer Editorial 

Over the weekend, the United Nations (UN) issued a warning that foreign domestic workers in Lebanon were being abandoned or locked in their employers’ homes as Lebanese families flee the escalating conflict between Israel and the armed group Hezbollah.

According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), many of the 170,000 foreign domestic workers in Lebanon are women from Ethiopia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.

On Tuesday, Israel said it had begun ground operations in southwest Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah which is allied with Hamas. The conflict has put the Middle East on edge, with Iran warning Israel against further attacks, and the UN pleading for a diplomatic solution to the brewing regional conflagration.

But with Israel starting its invasion into Lebanon, it is a race against time to keep foreign workers, including some 11,000 Filipinos, out of harm’s way.

The Philippine government cannot afford to continue its seemingly nonchalant way of handling the situation, choosing to implement alert level 3 which calls for voluntary repatriation of OFWs instead of moving them out of the conflict zone immediately.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said only around 1,000 Filipinos in Lebanon have expressed willingness to be repatriated last month. Deputy Assistant Secretary Marlowe Miranda claimed Filipinos in Beirut don’t want the DFA to raise the alert level to 4, which requires mandatory evacuation, because this would mean they cannot obtain clearance to return to Lebanon.

Lackadaisical attitude

But several OFWs in Lebanon have appealed to President Marcos last month to immediately repatriate them, as they expressed frustration at what they described was slow government response.

… Instead of waiting for the OFWs to come to the designated shelters, Philippine officials should move to secure the proper exit clearances and secure alternative land or sea transport for their immediate evacuation as air travel in Lebanon has been disrupted by the airstrikes. Only 111 Filipinos have taken refuge in a shelter in Beirut, a mere tenth of the Filipinos working in Lebanon.

Back in 2015, when the security situation worsened in Libya where at least seven Filipinos were abducted, then freshly appointed Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario flew to Tunisia to personally direct the evacuation of 400 Filipinos across the border from Libya. According to the DFA, Del Rosario—who died in April last year—personally traveled several times to Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Egypt, which resulted in the repatriation of over 24,000 Filipinos from these countries torn by civil strife and other disasters.

No less than this kind of hands-on approach is needed by the government to spare any more Filipino blood in the raging conflict in the Middle East.