Since the beginning of the worldwide lockdown five months ago, news headlines have mostly featured COVID-19. Day in and day out, we heard about the number of infections, death tolls, and the race to develop a vaccine. All of this, however, stopped on 4 August 2020 – the day when the world saw Beirut engulfed in a mushroom cloud caused by one of the biggest catastrophic explosions in recent memory. The world was in shock.
It is believed that the explosion was caused by 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate which were languishing inside a warehouse at the Beirut Port. News reports indicate that the blast killed more than 170 people and left more than 6,000 others injured. Among the fatalities are four Filipino household service workers. Two other Filipinos remain missing.
It is estimated that the damage to Lebanon caused by the explosion is up to USD15 Billion. Subsequently, the Lebanese government resigned due to the mounting political pressure from its citizens. There was dissatisfaction already even before the blast due to the economic and political crisis that Lebanon was facing. The explosion, which is believed to be an accident, served to aggravate the unrest.
As early as December 2019 and before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) had been repatriating overseas Filipinos affected by the economic crisis in Lebanon. While it was briefly suspended during the lockdown, it eventually resumed when Metro Manila went on General Community Quarantine (GCQ). To date, at least 1,508 overseas Filipinos from Lebanon have been successfully repatriated.
It is also worth remembering that last March, the Philippines lost its Ambassador to Lebanon, Bernardita Catalla, to COVID-19. This was a big loss for the DFA, the Filipino community in Lebanon and the entire diplomatic community. Ambassador Catalla is the DFA’s first diplomat who we lost to COVID.
On 17 August 2020, the DFA will be welcoming the return of 386 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) from Beirut. This is the first batch of repatriates since the blast. The remains of eight Filipinos will also be in the flight – four of whom were victims of the blast while the rest died of natural causes. This repatriation flight will bring the number of overseas Filipinos repatriated from Lebanon to more than 1,900. Meanwhile, another chartered flight is expected to arrive before the end of the month. All these flights are paid for by the Philippine government using the Assistance-to-Nationals (ATN) Fund of the DFA.
The Philippines, however, still has more than 30,000 OFWs in Lebanon; 11,000 of whom are undocumented workers. These undocumented or irregular workers are most likely victims of trafficking in persons since the Philippines has not been deploying overseas workers to Lebanon since the armed conflict in 2006. The repatriation efforts of the Department, therefore, will continue in Lebanon until the last Filipino who wishes to come home has been brought home. No one will be left behind.
To say that the world forgot about COVID-19 for a few days because of what happened in Beirut, is an understatement. While many countries in the world watched on the sidelines, there are countries such as the Philippines which were called to immediate action. The explosion and the economic displacement of thousands of our citizens, especially in Beirut, has become a matter of national concern.
As the DFA remains steadfast in our promise to bring home our people from Lebanon, we continue to hope. We hope that all our people are out of harm’s way. We hope that the crisis brought by COVID-19 will soon end. We hope that Lebanon swiftly recovers. Most importantly, we hope that our people will never lose faith and that despite these temporary setbacks, they know that the Philippine government is here to help them, hold their hand, and bring them home.
