PH Runs a Cycle of Crisis-Induced OFW Aid
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The first freed Filipino hostage Gelienor Pacheco thanked Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Philippine Ambssador Pedro Laylo, Jr. for the assistance rendered after she and 23 people were freed by Hamas militias last November 24. (photo courtesy of Philippine Embassy in Israel)
Pacheco, 33, smiled while walking in the middle of the group of recently released hostages, lugging his gray backpack and red stroller luggage. He didn’t show signs of having lost 11 kilos after Hamas militants held him hostage him for 49 days in the Gaza Strip.
He was freed as a result of the truce agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas militias last November 24. Pacheco shaved his beard a day after Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen visited him at the Shamir Medical Center.
Chicken adobo and pinakbet (a vegetable delicacy with shrimp paste) had cheered him up; Pacheco had craved for Filipino food, Embassy personnel said.
Meanwhile, on the evening of November 28, Noralon Babadilla, a caregiver, was finally released as part of a fourth batch of hostages in the Gaza Strip. Babadilla and her Israeli partner, Gideon Babani, were visiting a friend in Kibbutz Nirim on October 7 when she taken by Hamas. Babani was killed. Some 53 days after being held, “Ate Nora” was in a hospital in Tel Aviv for full medical and psychosocial treatment.
Freed Filipina hostage Nora Babadilla speaks with Ambassador Pedro Laylo, Jr. and Consul-General Anthony Achilles Mandap. Babadilla was freed by Hamas militias last November 28. (photo courtesy of Philippine Embassy in Israel)
Babadilla “speaks and walks without difficulty,” a Philippine Embassy statement wrote. Ate Nora even assisted a fellow hostage as they left the Gaza Strip.
“The last Filipino hostage in Gaza is finally free,” the Embassy said. Sporting a gray sweatshirt and clutching a black pouch bag, she embraced Philippine Ambassador Pedro Laylo, Jr., her eyes closed and a smile exuding relief, pain, glee.
Weeks prior to Pacheco and Babadilla’s release, the Philippines mourned four Filipinos (three of them caregivers) who died during the missile attacks on Gaza. The remains of caregivers Grace Cabrera, Paul Vincent Castelvi, Loreta Alacre, and nurse Angelyn Aguirre, have been repatriated and laid to rest in their Philippine hometowns.
The Scramble
These overseas Filipino workers in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory epitomize the risks that come from earning a living in another country. Every overseas crisis sends Philippine government authorities scrambling to rescue, repatriate, and reintegrate affected OFWs.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a test, with OFWs and more than 860,000 “non-OFWs” (including permanent residents) returning to the Philippines. But the Israel-Palestine crisis is the trickiest operationally, diplomatically, and logistically in recent times.
The security situation in Israel and Palestine, requiring a delicate migrant worker repatriation effort, is reminiscent of the pandemic and the OFW evacuation during the 1990 Gulf War. Civil conflicts, employer abuse, and worker trafficking have made the Philippines skilled at bringing and reintegrating affected Filipinos home.
However, the country’s migration management machinery is facing rising security-related challenges in various countries and even the open seas, stretching its ability to rescue and bring home affected Filipino workers.
Last November 19, Houthi rebels seized 17 Filipino crewmembers of an Israeli-linked cargo ship, Galaxy Leader, in the Red Sea.
“This (ship hostage-taking) is connected to the war between Hamas and Israel,” said Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Eduardo de Vega. “The ship was targeted because it was allegedly Israeli-owned, although the operator was a Japanese company.”
Rescue and Repatriation
When the Hamas attack and Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip broke out October 7, the Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv immediately activated a crisis management team.
Spearheading that team was diplomat Ambassador “Junie” Laylo, a former board director of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) who ran the polling firm Laylo Research Strategies. Assisting him was Consul-General Anthony Achilles Mandap, who just finished his tenure as deputy consul-general for the Philippine Consulate in Melbourne.
The Embassy in Tel Aviv became a command center of the OFW evacuation. Teams of Embassy personnel went to various parts of southwestern Israel, trying to locate affected Filipinos. They also visited shelters and hospitals and offered welfare and flight arrangement assistance. The Embassy has a hotline and has been issuing missile safety advisories on Facebook from the Israeli government. Relief goods were sent to Filipinos and Filipino organizations in affected Israeli kibbutzes.
OFWs working in 54 “critical” areas in southwestern Israel were told to apply for US$200 financial assistance from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). Eligible for this cash assistance are OFWs on B-1 working visa holders (regular migrants) and former B-1 working visa holders who have become undocumented.
The first confirmed Filipino casualty was 32-year-old Aguirre. The nurse cared for an elderly Israeli lady, Nira, when both were murdered by Hamas fighters in Kibbutz Kfar Aza October 7.
Angelyn, her sister said in a media report, tried to shut down the door of a bomb shelter in Kfar Aza. “But they (gunmen) overpowered her… She did not want to leave her employer.”
The Embassy then had to call the Aguirre family in the Philippine to relay the sad news and assure the repatriation of her remains. The same call was made to the families of Alacre, Cabrera and Castelvi.
Soon enough, a growing number of Filipino workers seeking repatriation followed. The Embassy then arranged for their mercy flights together with the Departments of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Migrant Workers (DMW) in Manila, with OWWA bankrolling the flights.
Distress signals everywhere
In the Gaza Strip and in nearby Israeli areas (the kibbutz), people encountered difficulties evacuating. Eventually, the Rafah Border Crossing (Ma`bar Rafaḥ) on the Egypt-Palestine border became the safety route. Given the movement of evacuees (including foreigners) at the Rafah Border Crossing, a third Philippine embassy —in Egypt— joined the effort in repatriating OFWs.
The government basically provides repatriation costs and transport to Philippine residences (DMW and OWWA), educational assistance (through programs of DMW and OWWA and of the Department of Social Welfare and Development), livelihood assistance (from DMW, OWWA, DSWD and the Department of Trade and Industry), medical and psychosocial assistance (DMW, OWWA and the Department of Health), and skills training (Department of Labor and Employment and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority).
DMW Officer-in-Charge Hans Leo Cacdac told news media that the government had spent some P80 million for the repatriation efforts. The money comes from an RA 11649-mandated fund called the AKSYON Fund (for Agarang Kalinga at Saklolo para sa mga OFWs na Nangangailangan).
Delivering assistance all over again
Until the security situations in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lebanon, the hijacked ship in Yemen and in a sense the Israeli-Egyptian border all ease up, this “cycle” of repatriation, return and reintegration of crisis-hit OFWs will continue.
From 2020 to June 2022 (within the pandemic era), OWWA had spent P115.066 million in repatriation assistance and a whopping P880.608 million in reintegration aid. These two programs alone benefited some 373,959 returnee OFWs during the pandemic.
But the cycle of crisis-induced assistance to affected OFWs never stops. The Philippines migration stakeholders have been running it for three decades.
Jeremaiah Opiniano runs the nonprofit OFW Journalism Consortium while teaching research methods and running a research center at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila.
