MANILA: The Philippine government is facing pressure to stop sending workers to Israel, with labor rights advocates and politicians raising security concerns amid the escalating conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Philippines does not allow the sending of workers to Lebanon, which is on its alert level 3 that carries a deployment ban. For the past few weeks, it has been also calling on nationals to return home in the wake of Israel’s increasing bombardment of civilian sites.
But no such measures are in place for Israel, which remains on the Philippine government’s alert level 2 despite facing retaliatory attacks amid growing hostilities with most neighboring countries.
“It’s time to review the policy,” said Raymond Palatino, former congressman and current secretary general of BAYAN, the Philippines’ largest alliance of grassroots groups.
“Given the worsening situation today, the government should at least consider suspending the deployment of workers to Israel.”
He told Arab News that while the Philippines was already repatriating its nationals from Israel, it was still allowing new batches of workers to go there and “face the same risks in their destination.”
Marissa Magsino, lawmaker representing overseas Filipino workers in Congress, also pressed for the deployment to be suspended.
“The Philippines should not continue to send its workforce to Israel due to the ongoing conflict and security risks,” she said. “The safety of the workers must come first.”
There are about 27,000 Filipinos in Israel, mostly caregivers, according to data from the Middle East chapter of Migrante, a global alliance of overseas Filipino workers. Some 900 of them have returned to the Philippines since October last year, when Israel began its deadly war on Gaza, which this month expanded to Lebanon as well.
“OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) in Israel are not really safe because Israel is at war and is continually fanning the flames of conflict against Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and other countries in the region. In fact, its so-called Iron Dome defense system was already breached,” Migrante told Arab News, referring to the recent Iranian strikes on Tel Aviv, where missiles penetrated the system designed to intercept rockets.
Migrante said its call to stop worker deployment was not only driven by security considerations, but also Israel’s ongoing destruction and indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza, over which it is a defendant in a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
It said the Philippine government should ban sending workers to Israel “as a matter of expressing its discontent with the government of Israel for illegally occupying Palestinian lands and for its war crimes against the people of Palestine.”
Since the deadly onslaught on Gaza began on Oct. 7, Israeli forces have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians and wounded in excess of 97,000 others, according to estimates from the enclave’s Health Ministry.
However, the real toll is feared to be much higher. A study published by the medical journal The Lancet estimated earlier this year that the true number of those killed could be more than 186,000, taking into consideration indirect deaths as a result of starvation, injury and lack of access to medical aid as Israeli forces have destroyed most of Gaza’s infrastructure and continued to block the entry of aid.
