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MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE) The Philippines should lift its deployment ban to Lebanon and issue an amnesty to the 43,000 workers who left the Philippines illegally since the prohibition was imposed in 2006, the Lebanese consul in Manila said.
In a telephone interview Friday, Consul Joseph Assad said the ban "is counterproductive" because it has not stopped Filipinos from leaving the country.
The Philippine government imposed the prohibition in 2006, at the height of the Israel-Lebanon war. The government also repatriated thousands of workers from the Lebanon.
In 2006, there were around 5,200 Filipinos who went to Lebanon. In 2007, 16,140 sneaked out of the Philippines. January-November 2008 data from Lebanon showed 21,982 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Lebanon, Assad said. Most of the 43,300 workers entered Lebanon as domestic workers, he noted.
"Despite the ban, there's about 43,000 workers who have entered Lebanon. This is really unfortunate because they are all in Lebanon as undocumented workers (in the eyes of Philippine authorities). I'm calling on the government, the Department of Foreign Affairs, to lift this ban. It's not logical and it's counterproductive," he said.
Assad said Manila should revoke the ban so that undocumented workers, mostly women, can register with the Philippine Embassy in Beirut.
The Philippine government should also allow Filipinos to enter and work in Lebanon because the country is experiencing an economic boom since the war ended two years ago. Lebanon, Assad said, is also in need of nurses and construction workers.
Aside from lifting the ban, the Philippine government should also issue an amnesty to all the workers, employers, recruitment agencies, and immigration officials that defied the prohibition.
Assad said the workers and the people who brought them to Lebanon were responding to the hard times. Those who sneaked out of the country, he said, were just trying to earn money to feed their families.
"I would like them to give amnesty to all these girls, and OFWs, and the immigration officials who helped them and the employers who employed them. In these times of economic crisis, when they are all returning, the door is open in Lebanon. We have capability of producing 80,000 jobs a year in Lebanon," he said.
Assad dismissed security fears in Lebanon. According to the embassy official, Lebanon "is safer than it ever was."
Aside from Lebanon, the Philippine government has also imposed a deployment ban in the war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq, and in Nigeria.
