MANILA, 23 January 2005 — Thousands of Filipino workers have refused to leave Iraq despite the escalation of violence ahead of the elections on Jan. 30, an official said yesterday.
Marianito Roque, chief of the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration, said only 49 Filipinos have sought voluntary repatriation from the strife-torn country.
Roque said Philippine diplomats have a hard time locating Filipino workers in Iraq because they are hiding from them.
“The Filipino workers even hide because they do not want to return home,” he said.
Roque conceded that more Filipinos have found work in Iraq despite a government deployment ban due to the worsening peace and order situation there.
Roque said there are already more than 6,000 Filipino workers in Iraq, mostly employed in companies servicing US troops.
He noted that foreign employers continue to recruit Filipinos from Iraq’s neighboring countries offering much higher salaries.
“What the foreign employers do now is they are hiring Filipinos from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Turkey to work in Iraq,” he said.
The Philippines imposed a ban on labour deployment in Iraq last July after a Filipino truck driver was kidnapped by militants.
A Filipino accountant, seized with several other workers in Baghdad in November, remains in the hands of Iraqi militants.
