Cagayan De Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (File photo by MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines — Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez on Tuesday supported the government’s plan to take in refugees fleeing Afghanistan.
Rodriguez said the Philippines accepted Afghan refugees in 2021. So there was nothing new in the plan, which has not yet been approved by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
“We are a compassionate nation. We are a caring people who will always receive refugees for humanitarian reasons,” he said.
Rodriguez recalled that during the Marcos Sr. administration, the Philippines hosted thousands of Vietnamese “boat people” after South Vietnam fell to communist North Vietnam in 1975.
He also pointed out that President Manuel Quezon took in more than a thousand Jewish refugees who escaped Nazi persecution and the Holocaust.