Task force hunts recruiters of 85 OFWs stranded in Lebanon

MANILA, Philippines - The Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment (TFAIR) has set its sights on recruitment agencies who continued to send Filipino workers to Lebanon despite an existing ban.

Vice President Noli de Castro on Thursday said he has directed the task force to start by identifying those responsible in the case of 85 overseas Filipino workers, who were due to return to the Philippines from Lebanon later in the day.

“I already instructed TFAIR to look into the case of these 85 OFWs, as to who recruited them and as to how they were sent to Beirut, considering we have a ban on deployment to Lebanon," De Castro said in a statement released on Thursday.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the 85 workers were expected to arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airpoirt (NAIA) in Manila at 10:40 p.m. Thursday via Etihad Airways flight EY428.

The Philippine ambassador to Lebanon, Gilberto Asuque, had earlier sought the help of the Office of the Vice President to determine how the number of OFWs being illegally deployed to the troubled Mideastern state continued to increase despite restrictions.
Beirut.

Upon hearing the case of 85 stranded Filipinas at the FWRC in Beirut, De Castro called Asuque to immediately process their repatriation papers.

At the same time, De Castro reminded aspiring OFWs not to believe recruiters who tell them that the ban to Lebanon has been lifted.

“I want to reiterate that the ban on deployment to Lebanon still stands. So please do not fall for those who offer jobs in Lebanon. Do not be a victim of these unscrupulous individuals," he said.

The Philippine government stopped sending Filipino workers to Lebanon in 2006 when violence between Hezbollah and Israeli forces escalated.

At that time, some 6,000 OFWs, many of them undocumented, were repatriated to the Philippines. Some 26,000 opted to stay out of fear of losing their jobs or because they were not allowed by their employers to leave.

Late last year, however, a report from Lebanon’s honorary consul to the Philippines, Josef Assad, claimed that almost 43,861 more Filipinos entered Lebanon since August 2006. - Kimberly Jane T. Tan, GMANews.TV

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