Eye of today’s storm

“Two Filipina nurses filed in to take pictures,” noted a Reuters  dispatch on crowds lining up to peek at the corpses of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi  and his son Mutassim. “Because of the stench of rotting flesh… guards handed out green surgical masks.”

Ahead of  the Filipinas in the queue was Abdullah al-Senussi, with flowing white beard. He  “was so frail he had to be supported by people on either side.” “We wanted to know if it was true or not,” Senussi explained.

United Nations and the NATO coalition   also want to know if Gadhafi and son were summarily executed. There is grainy footage showing  both were captured alive, after NATO jets whacked  their 75-car convoy sprinting from  embattled  Sirte. Their corpses turned up an hour later.

These killings could sear “hopes for a new Libya, based on rights, not revenge,” BBC’s Jeremy Bowen noted. These could be “the original sin  they may come to  regret… They need to get the fundamentals right from the very start.”

For now, the  issue  has been shoved to  backburners. In Tripoli, the National Transitional  Council is sketching out a timetable for new  elections. Libyans  also celebrated  their  usual way—by  firing guns. But this time, they pointed the artillery seawards. And some  thrust  flowers  into  AK-47  barrels.

That image hits recall buttons of  Edsa for  Filipinos. Demonstrators handed flowers to troopers, then, edging  to get within range of rebels, hunkered down in Camps Aguinaldo and Crame. Corazon Aquno’s regime prioritized  restoring constitutional government.

Sunday provided, meanwhile, a coincidental  but striking  counterpoint. Over 70 percent of  3.8 million Tunisian electors voted in the first  free  election of the Arab Spring. The poll came nine months after the Jasmine Revolt ousted   Zinedine Ben Ali  and his ostentatious  wife (lampooned as “Imelda Marcos of North Africa”  by Times of India).

Today, we should know how 217 delegates to a  Constituent Assembly voted  that  name, a prime minister and draft  a charter. Will  the assembly, as forecast,  house  the largest number of  women delegates ever  in the Arab world? That’s incendiary in a region where women are even not allowed to drive, as in Saudi Arabia.

Those  two Filipina nurses, in  Misrata’s  funeral  queue, were among over 1,800 Filipinos  who didn’t show up for August’s mandatory evacuation. Egypt, China, India and other  countries yanked  out their nationals, after Gadhafi skittered from  Tripoli. Libya used to hire  1.5 million foreign workers

“Not all (Filipinos)  left. Some were unable to go,” wrote  Michel  Cousins in Arab  News. “Others stayed on, either because they wanted to help or because there might be difficulties returning to Libya after conflict was over.

There were over  23,713  Filipinos  in Libya then—up from 7,913 in 2006. Among  them   were doctors,  professors, computer engineers to  construction workers. Some were undocumented  or “TNT” (tago ng tago). Men outnumbered women by roughly two to one.

Most clustered  in Tripoli  and  Benghazi.  Almahdi Alonto from Mindanao and Regilito Laurel from Manila were among  15 Filipino academics at the University of Misrata. Both  taught English. Your contracts are void, if you leave,” they were told.

So they stayed—until the revolt   shut down the university in February. By then, over a thousand people were killed and 3,000 injured, just   in Misrata.  The 15  Filipino academics left.

“Laurel  sold everything he had,”  Arab News adds.  “Others simply walked out of their homes, not knowing if  they’d  ever return.” They caught  a boat for  Benghazi’s refugee camp.  As volunteers, they worked at Hawari hospital, doing various jobs. That included   teaching English to nurses.

“It was not easy. They were not paid since April,” although some subsistence funds seeped down  from the National Transitional Council. Despite the destruction and deaths, the new government  will reopen universities, probably sooner rather than later. “Libya will continue to need Filipinos for the foreseeable future, especially teachers, nurses and engineers,” Laurel and Alonto say.

Gadhafi’s death  spurred enquires  at  the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA)  from Filipinos chafing to get jobs in Libya. No one knows how long it will take time for Libya to normalize. To prevent  reckless stampedes, the   President may have to use his   +44 percent  support  from OFWs, shown in  the latest SWS survey.

Libya is only one country in a  vast  region where the next  unpredictable chapter of the Arab Spring  is now unfolding. Gadhafi,  Mubarak, Ben Ali   were in power collectively for 95 years. Now they’re  in history’s dustbin.

“Kings Abdullah of Jordan and Mohammed of Morocco are  trying to stay ahead of the curve of protest,” CNN notes. The 85-year-old crown prince of  Saudi Arabia has died.  Geriatrics spurs  transition of power  there.

Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Ali Abdullah  Saleh  of Yemen cling to power by simply killing more of their people. That is a dead end.

“2011 is to the Arabs what 1989 was to the communist world,” writes  Hoover Institution senior fellow Fouad Ajami. “The Arabs are now coming into ownership of their own history and we have to celebrate.”

Two of 10 million Filipino OFWs are in the Middle East. Their lives, and  the future of  their families back home, twist  with the changes upending the sclerotic leadership of  the  Arab world. Libya was yesterday. Syria  and Yemen form the eye of  today’s storm.