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Thursday, July 20, 2006
200 Pinoy workers to leave Lebanon
MANILA -- The evacuation from Lebanon of some 1,000 Filipinos will start Thursday, with the initial batch of 200 leaving Beirut.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. said the 200 Filipinos are ready for evacuation by air from Beirut in Lebanon Thursday morning and will arrive in Damascus, Syria in the afternoon where they will stay overnight.
On Friday noon, Conejos said, the OFWs will then be flown via a chartered plane to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and then to Manila. He said the movement has been cleared with the Israeli government to ensure the safety of the departing OFWs.
Conejos said 80 of the 200 OFWs have stayed in workers centers while 36 were detained at deportation centers in Lebanon for violation of immigration laws and were turned over to the Philippine Embassy. He said the rest, whose employers have left Lebanon, were brought to relocation centers.
He said Kurdistan Airways has offered to shuttle the Filipino workers from Damascus to Dubai for free but the Philippine Government will shoulder the trip to Manila. "President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said she is not going to count the cost for any OFW. No one will be left behind, every life is sacred. So we will not count the cost here," he said.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said government's plan is to evacuate 1,000 Filipinos who have registered for evacuation in the Philippine Embassy in Lebanon. There are 30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon, including those who are undocumented.
He said a special envoy to the Middle East has been sent to Syria to help the departing OFWs. "We are in the evacuation mode at the moment," he said.
"The problem is while we know there is a clamor for the families of our OFWs in Lebanon, many of them also do not want to come home. They think that the situation will not last very long in Lebanon and therefore they would like to stick around," he said.
Conejos said the foreign affairs department has also identified other possible routes from Beirut: by sea from Beirut to Cyprus; by sea from Beirut to Rhodes Island in Greece; by land from Beirut all the way to Tripoli City in Lebanon and down to Damascus, the capital of Syria; from Beirut directly to Damascus; and by land from Beirut to Mersin in Turkey.
He said Cyprus will only allow itself to be used as a transit point because it is a very small island and there should be a chartered flight out of the island waiting. He said government is exploring the possibility of using secondary roads from Beirut to Damascus because the main highway to Damascus has been heavily bombed.
He said Alert Level 3 has been raised in Lebanon, which means that OFWs are advised to stay with their employers, where they are safe. In case they are left alone, he said the relocation site is the Church of the Miraculous Medal.
He said government is not raising Alert Level 4 (general evacuation) because the Israel military's targets have been "very precise."
"They are selecting their targets very, very carefully. This is not random or carpet bombings that's happening in Beirut. So there is no widespread violence in the streets of Beirut and our workers are better safe staying where they are but if you are in danger, the relocation sites are open for you and once you are there, we will move you out of Lebanon," he said.
Labor Undersecretary Danilo Cruz said the labor department is complementing the Department of Foreign Affairs' (DFA) efforts by reassigning some labor attaches in the Middle East to Beirut, Syria, Jordan, and Cyprus. He said a 24-hour hotline (833-6992 and 551-1560) and a cell phone line to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) at 09178986992 have been provided so the families of OFWs can contact their loved ones.
Ermita said Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo has asked US Ambassador Kristie Kenney to get the assistance of the US Embassy in Lebanon and in Israel in case OFWs need assistance. He said the US has better facilities all over the world and good evacuation plans that could also be used by OFWs who might get into trouble.
He said the US also has presence, in the form of the Sixth Fleet, which could provide surface vessels. "Through them (US Government), we can facilitate our contact with both governments for the Filipino workers to be given safe passage when they move from one place to another," he said.
He said Papal Nuncio Fernando Filoni and the Vatican have asked the archbishop of Lebanon to help OFWs there.
He said Romulo has asked extraordinary envoy Amable Aguiluz to negotiate with the Bahrain Government to make available plane trips out of Damascus or even planes to Manila via Dubai, which would be paid by the Philippine Government.
Conejos said despite the video footages of bombings, Filipinos in Lebanon are in a better position to assess whether they are in danger and need leave but government is just giving them an option. "There is no need to evacuate 30,000 Filipinos there," he said.
He said most of the OFWs in Beirut are employees of Christian families, and "the Christian area is never a target of Israeli attacks."
But if the violence becomes widespread, he said there will be forced evacuation.
Ermita said the Philippines is not siding with Israel or Lebanon because both countries host OFWs. He said the country will just take the stand of the UN to call both parties to come together and bring their problem to an end.
Senator Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada urged the Owwa to immediately release funds for the evacuation of 30,000 OFWs in Lebanon.
Estrada, chairman of the Senate committee on labor and employment, said the agency should use the funds contributed by OFWs intended for the welfare and protection of Filipino workers abroad and their families.
He criticized the government for allegedly having money for junkets and travel of Malacañang's top officials and their allies in the local government units (LGUs) and yet it cannot provide funds to help migrant workers stranded in the war-torn country.
He also asked the labor department and the POEA to provide alternative jobs and livelihood opportunities to OFWs who will arrive from Lebanon. "We should intensify the reintegration program and provide more skills training to the returning OFWs, particularly the low-skilled workers like domestic helpers or janitors, to give them the opportunity to shift to other jobs or careers," he said.
Prior to Estrada's call, Senator Ralph Recto had asked the government to use a portion of the P2.8-billion internal income of the DFA for evacuation. "The DFA is an income-earning agency. In times of crisis, it should be given a little leeway in tapping its own collection," he said.
The DFA earns revenue from passport and other consular fees.
The Philippine Government, at the same time, said it has no plans of suspending the deployment of OFWs to Israel despite the escalating tension between Hezbollah militants and Israelis.
Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said the concentration of the armed conflict is on the southern part of Lebanon and unlikely to spill over to Israel. "There was no report yet coming from the DFA that would provide us the basis to consider a deployment ban in Israel," she said.
There are about 30,000 OFWs in Israel and majority of them are domestic helpers and caregivers.
Baldoz said they are still processing the work permits of 75 to 100 OFWs bound for Israel.
On the other hand, she said the deployment of Filipino workers to Lebanon was suspended indefinitely. She said they stopped the processing of work permits and documents of OFWs bound for Lebanon last Thursday.
Baldoz said they would lift the deployment ban in Lebanon once the crisis is over. (JMR/REC/MSN/Sunnex)
(July 20, 2006 issue)
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