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MANILA, Philippines—The lifting of the ban on the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to Iraq needs a careful and thorough study, an alliance of OFW organizations in the Middle East said Friday.
Reacting to the call of several private recruiters for the lifting of OFW deployment ban to Iraq, Migrante-Middle East insisted that the peace and order situation in Iraq should be a paramount consideration by the government's labor agencies.
One recruitment consultant even said the prohibition should be scrapped since all those legally deployed to Iraq have returned home and the remaining estimated 10,000 OFWs there were all undocumented.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo banned Filipinos working in Iraq in July 2004 after a Filipino truck driver was kidnapped there.
The driver was freed unharmed after Manila pulled out its token military contribution to the coalition forces and some 4,500 Filipinos working in Iraq at the time were allowed to work out their contracts.
Migrante-Mideast regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona said the political situation in Iraq is “still highly volatile and risky”, adding, "It is too early to decide for the Arroyo government to lift the ban."
“Any decision to be made by the Arroyo administration to lift the deployment ban in Iraq should be based on the actual peace and order situation assessment and not merely on the basis of expectations and withdrawal of military forces,” Monterona said in a statement e-mailed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.
Monterona, who is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, cited the two suicide bombings that claimed the lives of 28 people including local army recruits at the northeast part of Baghdad recently. He said that that based on the reports by international and local media in the region, Iraqi militant groups have vowed to intensify attack against the invading United States forces.
“Since most Filipino workers are to be deployed in US military bases such as Camp Victory and Camp Anaconda, those who will be deployed are also made 'indirect' targets by the Iraqi revolutionary forces,” the migrant leader added.
Monterona said that once the ban is lifted, unemployed and new graduates will surely be the first ones to look for work in Iraq to support their families’ needs amid soaring prices of oil, foods and commodities in the Philippines.
“The growing numbers of unemployed Filipinos would rather ... face the risks of working in war-torn countries like in Iraq with relatively high salary than to stay empty in the Philippines and see their families bleeding dry,” Monterona said.
Monterona said this dire economic situation of unemployed Filipinos compel them to look for work abroad who, “by hook or by crook," would do everything just to obtain a job even in war-torn countries like Iraq.
“Recruitment agencies should not take advantage of them by over-charging them of huge placement fees, where many recruitment agencies ... also charge VAT over OFWs placement fees,” Monterona added.
“If the Arroyo administration decides to lift the deployment ban in Iraq , it cannot absolve itself from its state responsibility providing safety and security for all OFWs who will be deployed in war-torn Iraq. Thus, it remains accountable for every OFW deployed in Iraq,” Monterona said.
Several Filipinos have been killed or injured in Iraq, the latest in June when a man was killed and two women wounded in a mortar attack on the US compound in Baghdad. With Agence France-Presse
