Palace monitoring situation in Syria

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang yesterday said it is closely monitoring the situation in war-torn Syria, as US President Obama sought the approval of the US Congress to attack the Arab country that has been suspected of using chemical weapons.

In her regular weekend interview over government-run radio station dzRB, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte also said that the government has managed to repatriate over 4,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Syria.

“We will continue to facilitate the repatriation of our citizens who are there in Syria,” she added.

So far, no OFW has been reported killed or hurt in the armed conflict.

Valte said “the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) gave no such list. The last report they gave us was the additional OFWs who arrived from Syria.”

She refused to comment, however, on escalating tensions, saying it is still “hypothetical.”

“We don’t want to get into that yet. Our main concern is to get our people home from there, as has been our concern from day one, from the time we increased our alert level to mandatory evacuation or repatriation,” Valte stressed.

The DFA also continued to appeal to nearly 3,000 OFWs who remain in Syria to avail of the government’s mandatory repatriation program.

“Our priority is to bring our people in Syria out of harm’s way. We continue to urge our OFWs to avail of our mandatory repatriation program in that country,” DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said in a text message to The STAR.

Last week, the DFA sent Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis to Syria to lead the government’s evacuation of remaining Filipinos there.

Hernandez said there was no information yet on when President Aquino would call for a meeting of the Cabinet security cluster, which includes Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario as one of its members.

Obama on Saturday said he would ask the US Congress to authorize military action against Syria. The US Congress is set to resume on Sept. 9.

Washington said it would launch missile attacks on Syria to send a message of criticism against the violent attacks on the rebels by Syrian government forces. It was not intended to ask Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down from power.

The US government also said it has evidence that 1,429 people were killed in chemical attacks by the Syrian army last Aug. 21.   – With Helen Flores