Filipina Soul

Continued airstrikes prompted the Philippine Embassy in Lebanon to call for evacuation of the more than 30,0000 Filipino overseas workers still trapped in the country. Unfortunately, because of limited resources, we do not have any ships or military aircraft that could be flown into Lebanon so the embassy has asked the Philippine consul in Syria to find a chartered ship for the Filipinos.

DFA spokesperson Gilberto Asuque said the two possible evacuation routes remained the Beirut-Cyprus route by sea and the Beirut-Syria route by land, on trucks and buses. Although land evacuations are riskier than sea, it costs much less than the $400-500 fare that ships are asking for each Filipino chartered. A suggestion to use the Philippine Air Force C-130 transport planes was turned down because it will cost the government P280,000 for every hour of flight at 100 persons for every trip.

Most foreigners have been forced to flee overland to take flights from Syria after Israeli forces bombed the Beirut airport and its ships began patrolling Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast.

In the meantime, Israel has guaranteed safe passage for those fleeing by way of Syria, said Presidential chief-of-staff Michael Defensor. The OFWs in Israel are safer than their Lebaneses counterparts because commercial buildings and residences have bomb shelters that people where hide during aerial attacks.

My one reaction to the government in the middle of this – we have Filipinos working in these “consistently dangerous zones”, shouldn’t we have prepared for these evacuations ahead? It seems that we don’t have a very good plan of getting our people out, and we’re scrambling every time some conflict like this happens. Hopefully we’d have learned from the 1990s at the height of massive evacuations during the Gulf War.

Tags: evacuations, Israel, Labor, Lebanon, OFWs, Overseas Filipino Workers, Philippine Embassy to Lebanon, Syria

Sources: Inquirer; ABS-CBN Interactive; Manila Standard Today

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