Manila defers sea rescue plan

Manila: The Philippine government yesterday deferred plans to deploy two coast guard ships to ferry Filipino evacuees from Lebanon.

An official of the Philippine Department of Transportation and Communications told Gulf News that the plan will be further reevaluated, after learning that the coast guard would be needing 93 million pesos (Dh6.6 million) to accomplish the mission.

"The plan is temporarily shelved," said the official.

Manila announced the planned rescue operation on Sunday.

Yesterday afternoon, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos revealed the change in plans after realising that aside from the amount, the bulk of which would be used for fuel and provisions, they will have to pay $150,000 (Dh551,100) in Suez Canal fees. He said the entire amount is enough to evacuate 10,000 people from the war zone.

"Using the ships now already on the ground, we could evacuate easily 10,000 Filipinos, so these are the factors we are looking at," Conejos said.

"We have to look at our funds very, very carefully, so the coast guard proposal at this time is under consideration."

The coast guard ships, which were made by Tenix of Australia and designed for search and rescue missions, were supposed to leave tomorrow for Lebanon.

More than 2,000 of an estimated 30,000 Filipinos stranded in the conflict were repatriated to Manila since last week.

Additional inputs from Ares P. Gutierrez, staff reporter.