More than 9,500 Filipino residents have left the Gulf region over the last two months due to the Iran war in repatriation flights organised by the Philippine government.
Hans Leo Cacdac, secretary of the Department of Migrant Workers, spoke of the massive effort to assist nationals who reached out after the Iran war began on February 28 requesting to return home from the Gulf region, Lebanon and Israel.
The flights were a mixture of charter services booked when air travel was restricted and regular passenger flights with 9,210 Filipino nationals seeking government assistance to return to their families amid Iran missile and drone strikes.
Mr Cacdac was in Kuwait this week on his fifth visit to the region since the Iran war began. He returns to Manila on Thursday evening after a three-day visit on a special Kuwait Airways flight with 320 Philippine nationals.
“The situation in terms of repatriation, the trend and inflow of requests has slowed down,” Mr Cacdac told The National from Kuwait. “Having said that, we will continue to offer repatriation services for those who wish to come home. It is usually around 2,500 nationals for whom we are working to book repatriation flights, but these days that number has lowered to around 1,200.”
There are more than 2.1 million Philippine citizens in the Gulf region who work across sectors including hospitality and the retail industry.
Repatriation challenges
For a month from March 13 onwards, there were nine repatriation charter flights – seven out of the UAE and two out of Saudi Arabia.
The largest number of Philippine citizens work in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Of the 9,200-plus returning workers, about 4,000 were from the UAE, 2,267 from Kuwait, more than 900 each from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and 845 from Bahrain. The figures of Filipinos on repatriation flights is separate from workers given tickets home by their companies.
Officials have said the repatriation drive presented a different challenge compared to during the Covid-19 pandemic as air space in some Gulf nations including Bahrain and Kuwait was shut over the first month of the Iran war due to continued Iranian attacks. This meant Filipinos travelled for eight to 10 hours by road to the Saudi border to fly out of the region.
They were met at the border by Filipino officials who co-ordinated with local authorities to arrange visas and transit documents.
“This would be a bigger effort than Covid because here we had to transport people out of their points of origin to the crossings and then to the flyout points,” Mr Cacdac said.
“Given the urgency of the situation, this would be more difficult. During Covid, we basically just waited until the airspace opened, observed all the protocols, people came to the airports and were flown out. Here the urgency is more pronounced and land border crossings were required.”
Co-ordination was critical to sync travel, often in buses, and meeting points.
“It was quite a challenge. We deployed officials at the flyout points to receive people and we positioned people at the border crossings. We had personnel from migrant workers offices and teams come in from other posts,” he said.
“We were mindful of the fact that airspace had closed and airport operations had ceased. So the key was to identify fly out points, for Israel that was Cairo and for Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait that was Saudi. In the UAE, a limited airspace had opened. We had people for example at the Bahrain-KSA causeway, and people guiding the workers during those land crossings and bus trips.”
Returning home
Tehran launched thousands of missiles and drones on Gulf countries after the US and Israel hit Iran on February 28.
A conditional ceasefire came in to effect from April 8 with Tehran resuming attacks on Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE during a pause in hostilities.
The regional war has disrupted businesses across the Gulf with retail units, businesses and hotels shutting down and staff returning to their home countries.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things, it’s really hard to pin it down on one reason for wanting to come home,” Mr Cacdac said.
“In our inbound survey in the Philippines, 60 per cent say they are going home due to the conflict. The remaining would really need to come home as their contract ended, they were in between contracts or they are on mandatory holiday leave. In these cases, they seek the help of the Philippine government for repatriation ticket assistance including for their children.”
Coming back to the Gulf
Most of the people are keen to come back to the Gulf once the war has ended.
“The Filipino community has been affected in many sectors – hospitality and other services sector establishments. Our inbound survey shows that 70 per cent still express the wish to work abroad. About 50 per cent of them still have valid employment visas so that means they have an intention to return,” Mr Cacdac said.
He has met with government officials to convey the solidarity of the Philippine government.
“With our counterparts in the Gulf, we express our solidarity and our gratitude for protecting our overseas Filipino workers. We have made clear our continued co-operation in discussions with the ministers of labour in Gulf states.”
The Philippine government has provided a one-time payment of $200 to more than 12,600 workers in Gulf nations who faced employment disruption due to the war.
The workers who return home were also given financial assistance, temporary accommodation, transport to their home provinces and can avail of re-skill training as part of reintegration authorised by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Mr Cacdac spoke of the hope for the future shared by Filipino nationals he has met in the UAE, Saudi, Oman and Kuwait during the war.
“There is always a feeling of hope. Our workers continue to work here, they continue to be in good spirits,” he said. “They continue to be determined to serve their respective establishments and institutions. We are joined with our workers in their drive, their determination to continue to serve their families and communities through their work.”
