DFA to OFWs in banned states: Find other jobs

Filipino workers in Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon might as well look for jobs elsewhere if they still want to go abroad after visiting their families in the Philippines.

Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo said on Monday that the Philippine government is keeping the deployment ban in the four countries to ensure the safety of Filipino workers.

"Our aim is to protect citizens from harm's way," said Romulo is a press conference in Makati to launch a partnership with Ayala Foundation for the country’s hosting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development in October.

"There are other places they could go to. I hope they are only thinking that we are looking after their welfare," Romulo asserted.

"The total ban continues. All you have to do is read the papers here in the Philippines and in other countries," he said when asked for the basis of keeping the ban despite appeals from Filipinos working in the four countries.

Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said in the same press conference that while the DFA has not been directly consulting OFWs regarding the ban, he said he had already explained the situation to Filipinos in Nigeria during his recent visits to the African nation.

"Let the facts speak for themselves," said Conejos, noting that since conflict erupted in Nigeria in January 2006, more than 200 people had been held hostage --around 70 of them were Filipinos.

The government banned the deployment of OFWs to Iraq way back in 2004, Lebanon in July last year, and Afghanistan in December.

OFWs who had been working in Nigeria for years had said that the series of kidnappings in the River State has not been directly affecting them and that hostilities in the African nation are only concentrated in certain states and localities there.

Another group of OFWs in Afghanistan said in a letter addressed to Vice President Noli De Castro that they are better off earning money abroad than staying in the country only to have difficulty securing a job.

"We would rather choose to live and work in a dangerous country where we have employment and be able to put food on our table, provide shelter and clothing and send our children to school. The Philippine government does not have the right to take away our jobs from us if it is not able to provide these for us," the letter contained.

Groups of OFWs have been asking the government to lift the deployment ban to enable them to return to their jobs after they come home and be reunited with the families with whom they have been separated for three to five years. - Mark J. Ubalde, GMANews.TV

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