As danger escalates in Lebanon, some veteran OFWs decide to leave

MANILA, Philippines – After several years of sticking out with the conflict in Lebanon and neighboring areas, some overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have decided that the recently rising tensions have made it too risky to stay.

It’s full steam ahead for the Philippines in repatriating its nationals from Lebanon, which has been the target of recent attacks by Israel as it increases hostilities against the Hezbollah, Lebanon’s militant group allied with Palestinian group Hamas, which Israel has been at war with for over a year.

Arleen Gomez, a Filipino villa supervisor, has worked in Lebanon for over two decades. While she had grown used to the tensions, the past week has been overwhelming, she told Rappler in an interview on Friday, October 18.

Gomez and her husband stay together and work in Lebanon. As blasts strike the country, the couple barely sleeps, staying vigilant in case a rocket hits their neighborhood.

“Last night, I was even sick to my stomach and I could not sleep because of the anxiety. I was so afraid that a bomb could hit our place since I could hear explosions near us,” she said in Filipino.

Gomez applied for repatriation two months ago, but she is one of around 200 OFWs still awaiting clearance from Lebanese authorities to leave. Their employers left them in their residence and took the OFWs’ passports with them. While they are in touch, their employers did not agree to let them leave.

Still, Gomez was steadfast to go. OFWs who don’t have their passports have to secure a travel document from the Philippine embassy to be able to leave.

Forty-five OFWs and two dependents were repatriated on Thursday, October 17, the latest batch of repatriates as of posting. This brought the number of OFWs repatriated from Lebanon to 525 since the war broke out in October 2023.

For now, Lebanon remains at the Department of Foreign Affairs-designated Alert Level 3, which is still voluntary repatriation. Most of the 11,000 Filipinos have chosen to stay, despite the Philippine government consistently encouraging them to come home.

Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega told reporters on Thursday that an observation from the authorities was that many of the Filipinos who opted for repatriation were relatively new to Lebanon, while those who chose to stay were mostly veterans. But Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Cacdac said that there was still a growing number of veterans who chose to leave.

“There are many newer OFWs, a younger set who are going home. But there are also veteran OFWs who just said, ‘We really just want to stay away from harm, be more safe, and be with family, first and foremost,'” said Cacdac.

Stress in follow-ups

Arnel Sarcia, who works in vehicle maintenance, has been in Beirut for eight years. For him too, it was time to go.

“We thought that the conflict wouldn’t reach us, and that it would stay in Gaza… But the conflict now is very different — we are bombed almost every day,” he said, adding that one can feel ground vibrations when hearing explosions.

Sarcia also applied for repatriation. He felt relief in hearing from his community in rights group Migrante that he was cleared to leave, but he had yet to hear it from Philippine authorities.

He and Gomez similarly felt stress in the process of following up their repatriation requests with the Migrant Workers Office in Beirut, especially since the first thing that comes back upon a follow-up message is an auto-generated reply. Sometimes, it takes a while for a human to respond.

“I hope they can give updates to us faster so that we don’t have to pester them. If they could at least give us an exact waiting time, like, ‘We will get back to you in this number of days,’ then we won’t pester them as much,” said Sarcia.

The situation with the majority of OFWs choosing to stick it out in Lebanon is similar to the case of OFWs in Israel, who have grown used to the regional conflicts and may feel a sense of emotional attachment to the families they care for. Almost all of the OFWs in Lebanon are domestic workers, according to the Department of Migrant Workers.

The Hezbollah has said that it will escalate war with Israel after Sinwar, a mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the Gaza war, was killed during an operation by Israeli soldiers. – Rappler.com