EDITORIAL - Helpless

Other countries immediately dispatched ships, aircraft and buses to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon as the Israeli bombardment intensified. We had to send an SOS to Washington for help, and to the Vatican so Filipino refugees could be housed in Catholic churches in Lebanon.

Other developing countries with workers in Lebanon are surely in the same predicament as their citizens are trapped in a land that is again being torn apart by armed conflict. Seeing others in similar dire straits, however, does not diminish the feeling of national helplessness in assisting our compatriots overseas. This feeling of helplessness should galvanize the nation into action. We must create the conditions that will slow down if not stop the exodus of Filipinos for better paying jobs overseas. While working on this, we must improve the state’s capability to assist and promote the welfare of overseas Filipino workers or OFWs.

The situation in their own country is so bad that many of the 30,000 OFWs in Lebanon refuse to be repatriated, according to official reports. That reduces the headache of the government in evacuating the OFWs. With only a handful of military C-130 cargo planes that can transport a few hundred people per trip, and no naval vessels to pick up evacuees who manage to get out of Lebanon, the Philippines cannot implement a massive evacuation of OFWs from the war-torn country. Philippine policy makers have refused to invest in a credible military, which is called in not just for national defense but also for relief operations in disaster areas and in situations such as the tragedy that has struck Lebanon.

In the battle between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group, which is backed by Syria and Iran, the biggest losers are ordinary Lebanese, who had painstakingly rebuilt their country after protracted civil war and Syrian military occupation. Until Israel started its air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds last week, Beirut was being hailed as one of the most promising and progressive cities of the new millennium. Lebanon attracted hordes of migrant workers, including Filipinos.

Now those Filipinos are in trouble, and they don’t even want to return to their own land. The tragedy in Lebanon should remind us that we must get our act together to bring our people home for good.