Migrante International is deeply concerned with the escalation of conflict initiated by Israel against the Iranian people. The series of bombings by the Zionist state on June 13 unleashed a greater state of strife and danger for the peoples and migrants of the Middle East. Among those at risk are the 30,000 overseas Filipinos in apartheid Israel, seven of whom were injured by recent air strikes.
Israel and its US backers are ramping up its genocide of Palestinians and its aggression against peoples in the Middle East. Migrants have been caught in the crossfire or targeted by Zionists in their conflicts. Because of conflicts started by Zionists, Filipinos in Israel and Iran are now at risk. They are at fault for displacing Filipino-Palestinian families who fled Gaza, as well as OFWs in Lebanon and Syria. It is their wars that put seafarers under risk of detention for being forced to go through war zones near Yemen.
Today, Filipino migrants across the Middle East are afraid and in need of help. Yet Bongbong Marcos has not called for the mandatory evacuation of impacted Filipinos in Israel and the region. We consider this state neglect of OFWs a cruelty in the face of grave danger to their lives.
Among those now stranded in the Zionist state are 21 Philippine government officials. The Marcos administration approved them to go to Israel for a study tour on “sustainability and food security.” What sense of sustainability and food security could the Philippine government learn from Israel, which is polluting and starving Gaza with bombs and blockades? Marcos should be ashamed for collaborating with a genocidal state instead of rescuing distressed OFWs.
Today, we call on the Marcos Jr. government to organize a systematic rescue effort for Filipinos in Israel, as well as those still in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The administration should provide distressed migrants assistance in the forms of ground transportation, temporary shelter, and medical aid. Special treatment should not be given to the 21 stranded government officials. They do not deserve rescue any less than our migrant workers. We demand that not one Filipino migrant be denied rescue before it is too late.
Repatriation efforts must include full economic reintegration into Philippine society. Migrant workers would not put themselves into life-threatening danger overseas if there was no other way to put food on the table. Marcos must provide jobs and living wages to give Filipinos a choice that does not risk their lives in conflict-torn countries far from home.
In closing, we denounce the brutality of US-backed Zionist forces against Iran. They are the number one enemy of a just peace for the peoples and migrants in the Middle East. We call on overseas Filipinos to resist the wars of aggression of apartheid Israel and their US masters. With Palestinians, Iranians, and other oppressed peoples, let us fight together for our lives against imperialism and fascism.
