Diplomat leads convoy of Filipinos from Libya
Feb 28, 2011 at 17:50
By JIM GOMEZ, AP
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine foreign secretary personally led a rescue convoy out of troubled Libya's capital, accompanying about 400 Filipino workers across the border into Tunisia despite the risk, his spokesman said Monday.
A migrant workers' advocacy group has called on the Philippine government to do more to organize evacuations. Only about 1,900 of the up to o 30,000 Filipinos working in Libya have so far gotten out, and a witness said the country's embassy is jammed with hundreds seeking refuge.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario flew to the region and then traveled by land with two other diplomats to Tripoli on Sunday to escort the workers back to Tunisia in a 55-vehicle convoy, the Foreign Affairs Department said.
The evacuation went without incident, spokesman Ed Malaya said. From the Tunisian border region of Jerba, del Rosario, a former ambassador to the U.S. who was appointed the acting secretary only last week, was arranging for another 150 Filipinos to leave Tripoli.
"It's a heroic act," Malaya said. "At severe risks to his personal safety and against the advice of some of his colleagues, he went to evacuate our workers as quickly as humanly possible."
Libya has been rocked by unrest for almost two weeks and the country's leader Moammar Gadhafi has launched by far the bloodiest crackdown in a wave of anti-government uprisings sweeping the Arab world. Human rights groups and European officials have put the death toll at hundreds, or perhaps thousands, though it has been virtually impossible to verify the numbers.
About 400 Filipinos have returned to Manila on evacuation flights arranged by their employers. About 13,000 Filipinos in Libya work with multinational companies that signed contracts committing them to evacuate the workers in times of emergencies, Malaya said.
Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, meanwhile, urged Gadhafi on Monday to follow the example of her late dictator hu*****and Ferdinand Marcos, who in the final days of his 21-year rule did not resort to violence to disperse large numbers of protesters during a 1986 "people power" uprising but instead fled the Philippines.
The widow often insists it was her hu*****and's choice not to use force against pro-democracy protesters and to instead flee to exile, although he might have had little choice after his most loyal generals defected.
"I hope he'll be like Marcos and stop the violence," said Imelda Marcos, who met the Libyan leader in the 1970s.
Nearly 10 percent of the Philippines' 94 million people work abroad, and the money they send back to their families fuels domestic spending and economic growth. Their remittances last year rose 8.2 percent to a record $18.76 billion, the equivalent of 10 percent of the country's economic output, according to the central bank.
Elsie Dominguez, a Filipino restaurant manager at a Tripoli hotel who recently escaped, said the two-story Philippine Embassy, which has few rooms and one toilet, had been overwhelmed by hundreds of Filipinos fleeing from oil refineries and other work sites to the Libyan capital. She managed to return to Manila on Sunday aboard a commercial plane chartered by her company.
"When we left, the Tripoli airport was crammed with about 10,000 people waiting for flights beside piles of belongings. There was no water. Many were sleeping everywhere amid the chaos," she said.
The government also chartered a ferry to fetch hundreds of Filipino workers stranded in Benghazi, a Libyan port taken over by anti-Gadhafi forces.
A prominent group of overseas Filipino workers, Migrante International, has criticized the government's slow response in organizing evacuations from Libya.
"Filipinos now are facing confusion, fear and hunger there," said Gary Martinez, head of Migrante, adding his group had reached out to stranded Filipinos through emergency telephone hotlines and e-mail then passing on the details to officials in Manila.
Diplomat leads convoy of Filipinos from Libya
Feb 28, 2011 at 17:50
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine foreign secretary personally led a rescue convoy out of troubled Libya's capital, accompanying about 400 Filipino workers across the border into Tunisia despite the risk, his spokesman said Monday.
A migrant workers' advocacy group has called on the Philippine government to do more to organize evacuations. Only about 1,900 of the up to o 30,000 Filipinos working in Libya have so far gotten out, and a witness said the country's embassy is jammed with hundreds seeking refuge.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario flew to the region and then traveled by land with two other diplomats to Tripoli on Sunday to escort the workers back to Tunisia in a 55-vehicle convoy, the Foreign Affairs Department said.
The evacuation went without incident, spokesman Ed Malaya said. From the Tunisian border region of Jerba, del Rosario, a former ambassador to the U.S. who was appointed the acting secretary only last week, was arranging for another 150 Filipinos to leave Tripoli.
"It's a heroic act," Malaya said. "At severe risks to his personal safety and against the advice of some of his colleagues, he went to evacuate our workers as quickly as humanly possible."
Libya has been rocked by unrest for almost two weeks and the country's leader Moammar Gadhafi has launched by far the bloodiest crackdown in a wave of anti-government uprisings sweeping the Arab world. Human rights groups and European officials have put the death toll at hundreds, or perhaps thousands, though it has been virtually impossible to verify the numbers.
About 400 Filipinos have returned to Manila on evacuation flights arranged by their employers. About 13,000 Filipinos in Libya work with multinational companies that signed contracts committing them to evacuate the workers in times of emergencies, Malaya said.
Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, meanwhile, urged Gadhafi on Monday to follow the example of her late dictator hu*****and Ferdinand Marcos, who in the final days of his 21-year rule did not resort to violence to disperse large numbers of protesters during a 1986 "people power" uprising but instead fled the Philippines.
The widow often insists it was her hu*****and's choice not to use force against pro-democracy protesters and to instead flee to exile, although he might have had little choice after his most loyal generals defected.
"I hope he'll be like Marcos and stop the violence," said Imelda Marcos, who met the Libyan leader in the 1970s.
Nearly 10 percent of the Philippines' 94 million people work abroad, and the money they send back to their families fuels domestic spending and economic growth. Their remittances last year rose 8.2 percent to a record $18.76 billion, the equivalent of 10 percent of the country's economic output, according to the central bank.
Elsie Dominguez, a Filipino restaurant manager at a Tripoli hotel who recently escaped, said the two-story Philippine Embassy, which has few rooms and one toilet, had been overwhelmed by hundreds of Filipinos fleeing from oil refineries and other work sites to the Libyan capital. She managed to return to Manila on Sunday aboard a commercial plane chartered by her company.
"When we left, the Tripoli airport was crammed with about 10,000 people waiting for flights beside piles of belongings. There was no water. Many were sleeping everywhere amid the chaos," she said.
The government also chartered a ferry to fetch hundreds of Filipino workers stranded in Benghazi, a Libyan port taken over by anti-Gadhafi forces.
A prominent group of overseas Filipino workers, Migrante International, has criticized the government's slow response in organizing evacuations from Libya.
"Filipinos now are facing confusion, fear and hunger there," said Gary Martinez, head of Migrante, adding his group had reached out to stranded Filipinos through emergency telephone hotlines and e-mail then passing on the details to officials in Manila.
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