By Angelo S. Samonte, Reporter
It is now final: The government is imposing a total and unconditinal ban on worker deployment to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Nigeria.
The decision was arrived due to escalating tension and violence in those countries, the Department of Labor and Employment said.
Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said the decision to ban Filipinos to work to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Nigeria was already agreed during a meeting between the DOLE and the Department of Foreign Affairs in December.
The ban on Iraq has been in effect since 2004, while it was imposed on Lebanon since June 2007.
The government ordered a similar ban last month on Nigeria and Afghanistan to prevent Filipinos from going there, Brion said.
The full deployment ban means that the Labor Department and its units will no longer process the application of workers for those countries.
Brion, however said, that Filipinos already working in these countries would not be forcibly evacuated.
The government decided to stop sending OFWs to these four following the series of abductions, maltreatments, abuses and deaths of Filipino workers in these areas.
The Labor Department will wait for the recommendation of the DFA before the total deployment ban for OFWs in these four countries will be lifted, Brion said.
Earlier, a Filipino worker was killed while 18 of his colleagues remain trapped inside a hotel and awaiting help from the Philippine Embassy, amid tension in the Port Harcourt area in Nigeria.
One of the trapped seamen who identified himself as Pancho Laguitan said he and his 17 colleagues are trapped inside a hotel since violence broke out in the area on New Year’s Day.
He said a Filipino electrician was killed during the tension. While he did not name the electrician, he said initial photos showed that the victim suffered burns in the body.
“On New Year’s Day, there was tension here, there was gunfire and we were trapped. The embassy told us not to go out of our hotel because the situation is tense,” Laguitan said.
Pancho said they were afraid because of the continued gunfire.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos Jr. said Philippine authorities are now coordinating with local officials for the evacuation and repatriation of the trapped Filipino seamen.
Conejos said the tension stemmed from an incident on December 19, when a militant group attacked the area.
When the militants attacked the tanker where the 19 Filipinos were serving, the Filipinos jumped in the water to evade the attack.
However, one OFW was killed, while the rest, all 18 of them, swam to safety.