READ: TIMELINE: US-Iran conflict and how it gravely affects Filipinos
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) — The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration has imposed a total ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to conflict-stricken Iraq, an order that came a week after the government ordered all Filipinos there to come home.
The POEA Governing Board, chaired by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, on January 10 ordered “a total deployment ban on the processing and deployment of all [overseas Filipino workers], including crew changes and shore leaves of Filipino seafarers in Iraq.” The resolution was released and made formal on Tuesday.
The government has been trying to repatriate all Filipinos in Iraq after raising the highest alert level there on January 8.
Iraq served as battleground of United States and Iranian forces after President Donald Trump ordered the killing on Jan. 3 of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad’s airport. That was followed by Iran’s retaliatory missile barrage on an Iraqi military base west of the capital that houses US troops, raising fears of a wider conflict.
Iran appears to be standing down, Trump said, but Special Envoy to the Middle East Roy Cimatu stressed that evacuation should still be done as soon as possible to ensure the safety of all Filipinos in Iraq.
A first batch of 13 Filipinos is arriving in the country on Wednesday. Cimatu earlier said that about 1,600 Filipinos have expressed intent to avail of repatriation. However, only a few of them actually went to the Philippine embassy in Baghdad to arrange their exit.
Data from the Department of Labor and Employment showed there are 2,191 overseas Filipino workers in Iraq, while records from the DFA counted 4,204 Filipinos in the Middle Eastern country as of June 2019.
