MANILA, Philippines - President Benigno Aquino III said today that Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario is making a "last call" for Filipinos to avail of the government's repatriation program in the strife-torn Libya.
"Secretary Del Rosario is in the area. I await further information from him. But I did communicate with him and he informed me that we were informing all of our citizen in Libya that this was the last call," Aquino told reporters.
Del Rosario went to personally supervise the repatriation of Filipinos from Libya again after the UN-approved strike against the forces of embattled President Moammar Ghadafi.
Aquino said he is hoping that no Filipinos were hurt during the operations.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said at least 2,000 Filipinos were still in Libya. Majority of the Filipinos refused the government's initial offer to be repatriated from the strife-torn country. Earlier reports said there were 30,000 Filipinos in Libya when violence erupted in the country.
"I was just briefed about a few minutes ago that we chartered a ship at a cost of about 2-million euros, good for about 1,700 passengers and only 600 showed up," Aquino said.
The DFA fetched Filipinos from Tripoli and Libya through buses and the 1,700-capacity vessel, Ionian Queen.
Aquino said that he has been informed that the DFA is having a hard time chartering vessels that would fetch the remaining Filipinos from Libya due to the rising hostility of Ghadafi's forces.
"Unfortunately, at this point in time, after the bombing attacks there are very few ships especially those of European registry willing to go to Libyan ports," he said, adding that European-registered vessels are now afraid of being seized by local soldiers.
An earlier report by the Associated Press said that an Italian tugboat was seized by Libyan army officers while docked at Tripoli's port.
"So we are still exerting our efforts and we are hoping that none of our countrymen will be harmed during these current operations," Aquino said. (With Xinhua)