Contingency plan drawn up for Pinoys in South Korea

The Philippines has drawn up a contingency plan for the evacuation of 40,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from South Korea if need be, following North Korea’s declaration that it was in a “state of war” with its neighbour.

“For now, the reports from our embassy are that it is business as usual and life is normal in South Korea,” Raul Hernandez, assistant secretary at and spokesman of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), said in a briefing at the presidential palace on Monday.

He added, “But our embassy is ready for any eventuality and that’s why it has asked our people to be alert and be ready if there is a need to upgrade the alert levels.”

One of the options in the plan is to employ commercial vessels — similar to what the Philippine government did recently for the OFWs in Libya and Syria as well as in Lebanon earlier, according to deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte.

Senator Loren Legarda, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, was quoted by the ‘Philippine Daily Inquirer’ as saying that she welcomes the preparedness plan drawn up by the administration of President Benigno Aquino III.

“Uncertainties and dangers exist,” she said. “All these could lead to regional instability and erode the progress achieved by countries in the region, including the Philippines.”

Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz has told reporters that there is yet no deployment ban of OFWs to South Korea, although she added that the Philippine Embassy in Seoul is at Alert Level 1, the lowest of four levels.

It was to South Korea where the Philippine government deployed the first batch of overseas Filipino workers in the 1970s. The government did not have a formal regulation for OFWs then, but those workers, mostly engineers and skilled workers, were sent over to help build roads and bridges in Seoul.

The alert level, which currently calls for Filipinos to be vigilant about the security situation on the Korean peninsula, was raised in 2010 and 2011, owing to similar tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang. In those years the embassy closely monitored the situation in co-ordination with the South Korean authorities, US forces and the UN command in the host-country.

Hernandez said that Alert Level 2 restricts the movements of Filipinos while Level 3 means the need to relocate from areas at risk and, Level 4 calls for mandatory evacuation.

Should the alert level be raised to 4, Hernandez said, Filipinos are directed to meet in the cities of Daegu and Gimhae in the southern part of South Korea, where Philippine consular officers will arrange for their travel home.

He stressed, “The embassy is also in close contact with Filipino community leaders as part of efforts to refine the contingency plan, including firming up evacuation sites.”

12 dead, 521 injured during Holy Week

Twelve people died, 531 injured and eight saved from the high seas in various parts of the Philippines archipilaego, as the predominantly Roman Catholic country observed the Lenten break last week.

In the southern Philippine province of Agusan del Norte, two members of the Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) died when armed men attacked a procession on Good Friday at Barangay Anticala, Butuan City.

The Office of Civil Defence at Camp Aguinaldo in Manila  received reports that members of the New People’s Army, which was celebrating its 44th anniversary, were responsible for the attack. But the NPA, the armed group of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines, on Monday denied any role in the attack.

Six of the 12 people who died in separate areas all over the country were from Region IV (or Calabarzon), three from Cagayan Valley, and one each from Ilocandia, Region 10 and Caraga. The victims were either shot or stabbed, police reports said.

Calabarzon consists of the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon while Caraga, or Region XIII, is on the northeastern part of Mindanao Island, in the southern Philippines, and has five provinces.

Most of those injured were from the National Capital Region of Metro Manila with 493, followed by Region IV (24), Cagayan Valley (seven), Region 10 (six) and Central Luzon (one). These cases mainly involved minor road accidents and fights during or after drinking sprees.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said the eight people, who were saved by passing motorboats when their ferry ‘MV Virgin Mary’ sank off the coast of Batangas City, 106km south of Manila, on Maundy Thursday, included four children.

It is conducting further investigation into the case, as the vessel, which was on its way to San Agustin Kanluran, on Isla Verde (Green Island), was unregistered.




 

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