13,000 Filipinos urged to evacuate as fighting escalates

MANILA, Philippines—As Libya edges toward civil war, the Aquino administration is urging some 13,000 Filipinos still in the North African country to leave immediately, officials said Monday.

Foreign Undersecretary Rafael Seguis told a news briefing that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Labor and Employment had raised the alert level in Libya from No. 3, or voluntary repatriation, to No. 4, which strongly urged Filipinos to depart.

Seguis said the situation had become “very dangerous” in Tripoli and areas around the Libyan capital.

“We can’t force people to get out of Libya, but we’re trying to convince them to leave,” he said.

More than 213,000 foreign workers have fled Libya’s violence and hundreds of thousands more are struggling to get out, an official of the International Organization for Migration said in Geneva.

According to Seguis, six teams now in Libya will conduct “mop-up operations”—as the security situation permits—this week until Saturday in areas other than Tripoli, Benghazi and other coastal areas engulfed in violence.

If necessary, the government will arrange a third evacuation mission using the Philippine-chartered Greek ship MV Ionian Queen, he said.

So far, the Cyprus-flagged vessel, which has a total capacity of 1,720 passengers, has fetched some 1,800 Filipinos from the coastal cities of Benghazi and Tripoli.

Only 625 Filipinos boarded the first mission out of Benghazi, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said, correcting an earlier report that the luxury liner ferried 1,200 last week from the eastern city. On Friday, the vessel picked up in Tripoli 1,200 Filipinos, including nonessential staff and dependents of Philippine Embassy personnel.

At least 185 Filipinos from the vessel’s first mission are still in Crete awaiting connecting flights to Manila.

As of Monday afternoon, 4,222 of the nearly 12,000 Filipinos who had fled Libya have returned to the country, Baldoz said at the DFA press conference.

Baldoz said that of the returnees, 2,523 had received P10,000 in assistance. Applications for the one-time cash aid are being processed at the Philippine Trade Training Center, she said.

Following criticism last week that the government had been slow in reacting to the Libyan crisis, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said that while the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) had amassed P13 billion from the $25 fee each departing worker pays, operational glitches on the ground had prevented efficient response.

Owwa chief Carmelita Dimzon denied reports that government repatriation teams had complained about funding problems.

“We have not received any complaints from our people in the field,” she said.

On Monday, some 400 Filipinos—on board regular flights of Qatar Airways, Gulf Air, Cathay Pacific, Etihad and Saudi Arabian Airlines—were expected to arrive at the Manila airport, according to Owwa.

“For the past two weeks, we have accomplished much,” Seguis said in a statement. “There remains much to be done. We have had very close coordination and partnership with Secretary Baldoz and her team, and will continue to do so.”

Seguis said he was “continually grateful to the Almighty that up to now, there is no Filipino fatality because of the crisis.”

Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, who last week slammed government efforts as “too little, too late,” said the DFA should be applauded for scrambling in the past week to evacuate the workers.

But given that half of the estimated 26,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remained in Libya, the government should step up its efforts not only to repatriate but to convince them to leave, Zubiri said.

“Overnight it could turn very dangerous if the civil war escalates,” he said.

“We should pull them out. There’s still 50 percent left. The civil war will surely escalate. There will be bloodshed. We can’t wait for an OFW to be raped or killed,” Zubiri said.

“Rebel groups are amassing arms and troops, and they will make a push toward Tripoli. I’m worried about their safety,” he added.

Zubiri said each of the Filipinos remaining in Libya should be tracked down so that any emergency evacuation would be “quick and swift.”

He said the government also should draw up a “more efficient response” for OFWs in other distressed countries in the Middle East.

Prepare for next crisis

For starters, the government should print emergency manuals for OFWs which list down dos and don’ts during an emergency or crisis, numbers of people to call, and addresses of safe houses, Zubiri said.

“In my view they should improve their template if this happens in Bahrain, Oman and other areas,” he told reporters.

Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. said the government should draw lessons from the Libya experience in drawing up contingency plans in case the unrest spilled over to other Arab countries.

“There should be a group assigned to do this, and a ready fund because many other countries in the Middle East are facing the same problem,” Villar said, stressing that government units should be on the ground.

“We should use those lessons from Tunisia, Libya and Egypt in case a similar problem erupts in another country.” With a report from AP