Manila ready for evacuation of OFWs

The Philippines is prepared for the evacuation of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Iraq in case the United States pushes through with its plan to launch a military offensive against Saddam Hussain's government, officials in Manila said.

Ignacio Bunye, Press Secretary and acting spokesman for President Gloria Arroyo, said that at present, there are only about 117 OFWs in Baghdad.

He pointed out that in the past, the Philippine government was able to handle the evacuation of an even greater number of Filipinos during several international crises in Iraq.

The first time, Bunye said, Philippine diplomatic offices in Kuwait and Iraq evacuated some 40,000 Filipinos during the 1991 Gulf War and there were no major problems encountered.

"I don't think any major problem would arise if there is going to be an evacuation now. We can definitely handle the much smaller group of Filipinos in Iraq right now," Bunye said.

In a separate interview, Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Victoriano Lecaros said most of the Filipinos in Iraq comprise mainly of embassy employees and their dependents as well as members of international aid organisations.

The DFA spokesperson noted that if need be, the Filipinos in Iraq can fit inside the embassy building itself while officials are preparing to move them to safer areas in the Middle East.

DFA Secretary Blas Ople said that Filipinos in Iraq have been adequately notified on the possibility of evacuation. "They are now conducting an evacuation 'dry run'‚ and have been given briefings," he said.

While officials in Manila assured the safety in case of renewed outbreak of hostilities between the U.S. and Iraq, Philippine Labour Secretary Patricia on the other hand aired apprehensions on the safety of an estimated one million Filipinos employed in the region.

Manila's apprehension over a possible conflict in the Gulf follows Saddam's defiant speech to his countrymen on Thursday wherein the Iraqi leader said a U.S. attack on Iraq would be 'doomed to failure.'

The strongman was apparently reacting to renewed calls from Washington for Baghdad to abide by its 1991 obligations to the United Nations to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction.

This followed an announcement by U.S. President George W. Bush that America had adopted a 'first strike' policy against rogue states that abets terrorism.

Bush's first strike policy had been criticised by Philippine Vice President Teofisto Guingona, who on Thursday said that the U.S. strategy 'was endangering world peace.'

"The main premise of a strike-first policy is to make the world a safer place but many fear it could only generate the opposite and breed animosity worse than that between the Israelis and the Palestinians because might does not make right," Guingona told a forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.