Is it really worth it?
More than seven hundred OFWs were recently repatriated from war-torn Libya. The Philippine government rented a ship from Malta at a cost of around eighty million pesos to ferry the OFWs from Libya to Malta, where they could catch a flight back home. Libya is in a state of instability, prompting the government to issue an alert level 4 or a mandatory evacuation of all Filipino nationals for their own safety. A Filipino worker has already been beheaded and a nurse gang-raped and killed. Things like these are what the government would want to avoid happening to our workers. Suffice it to say that the government is doing all it can to bring them home.
It was discovered that one OFW did not board the plane that would have brought him back home. It is suspected that he decided not to come back and just stick it out, hopefully until things normalize where he could go back to work in Libya. This in turn has tarnished the Filipino image once again. We wonder why Filipinos are always suspected of becoming TNTs, or illegal aliens to gain employment. This act by a single person has unfortunately reinforced that image once again. The DFA has issued a note verbale, apologizing for the incident and promised to investigate the matter. Such an embarrassment that affects every traveling Filipino.
I wish he had just stayed in Libya, which according to the DFA is what more than ten thousand Filipinos decided to do. They would rather take their chances and the risks to keep their precious jobs. Obviously the glare of money outweighs the risks of being beheaded, raped or killed. The gamble is for them to weather the instability up to such time that everything calms down and they return to their jobs, since nothing really awaits them here. I guess that is their decision.
But a lot has to be said about this particular Filipino trait of ignoring or even dismissing warnings and advises when potential disasters are on the horizon. How many times have we heard about the government issuing evacuation orders whenever a strong typhoon is on the way, or when a volcanic eruption is imminent, or in the case of Libya, a war is brewing? Then those stubborn enough to listen to the warnings end up asking for help when it is already difficult for authorities to do so. We need to learn to heed the warnings of authorities, especially in times of impending calamities. We may not have wars like that in Libya, Iraq, Ukraine or Syria, but we are not lacking in natural calamities like storms, volcanic eruptions, landslides and earthquakes. No one is arguing that the money is much better abroad. But is a fat paycheck worth the possibility of being beheaded or gang-raped by lawless elements who know they will never be apprehended nor punished? I don't think so.
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