Safe from Lebanon strife, Pinoys pine for work abroad
by JAY GARCIA

VILLAMOR AIR BASE--THE wind howled and lashed thumb-size raindrops on the windows of the Airbus 310 taxiing the tarmac, but the storm has nothing on the bullets and bombs raining Lebanon. Yet, the 232 Filipino Airbus passengers wished they were back in Lebanon.

Even before their feet kissed Philippine soil, some of the first batch of Filipinos flown from the strife-ridden Middle East country, couldn't help but wish to go back abroad.

Efren Limon, 39, for one, already expressed his plan to go back to Lebanon, where fighting between Hizbollah guerillas and Israeli soldiers have grown fierce in the 15 days since the conflict began.

Carrying two large green duffle bags on each shoulder, Limon didn't appear to have come from what other Filipinos like him described as a “nightmare.”

The dark-skinned Limon's teeth and lips below a combed moustache formed into a smile as he strolled into a hangar. He even waved at relatives, including his 33-year-old wife Cristina and their two-month-old son Gabriel Arturo, who were sitting and waiting for him at the back row of plastic chairs.

“I didn't want to go back [to the Philippines] yet,” Efren told reporters Sunday afternoon here, the second day of a wet weekend.

He explained they just came from a vacation in their hometown in Taytay, Rizal last January and was only in Lebanon for under four months when fighting there broke out mid-July.

He said it was his boss who wanted him out of Lebanon, citing Israeli airstrikes were getting nearer.

For the past 12 years, Limon has worked as a housekeeper for the home in the province of Bekaa of former Lebanese Defense Minister Mohsen Dalloul.

“They have been good to me. That's why I stayed that long,” Limon said in Filipino.

Though he admitted that it was still worrisome, the Limon family stayed at Daloul's mansion with relative ease compared to other Filipinos.

But two missiles that landed and exploded 30 meters away from the mansion prompted Daloul, who was in France before Israel launched major attacks, to order Limon to leave.

“He told me the safety level has been compromised,” Limon said.

Dalloul's bodyguard drove for two hours to bring the housekeeper and his family to the Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal parish church in Beirut, where most of the Filipinos were temporarily lodged.

Firsts
OTHER Filipinos meanwhile, though still shaken either from the 17-hour flight from Syria or their plight in Lebanon, were just thankful to be alive.

Thirty-year-old Marivic Borras, the first off the plane a few minutes after the hatch opened, walked straight to the hangar without hearing the words of President Arroyo who broke protocol by entering the aircraft.

I'm just so glad to be here and out of Lebanon, said the mother of 10-month-old Filipino-Egyptian daughter Sheryn. Hugging her daughter tight in her arms, she wasn't carrying any bag.

Can I sit first? Borras, oblivious to the flash of cameras inside the hangar and of lightning outside, asked.

That was one of the quick and curt replies Borras gave to reporters. She said were it not for her baby that she clutched close to her arms, she could have kissed the ground.

“I'm not going back there,” said the native of Iloilo, who, for the past five years, worked in a restaurant in Lebanon.

Borras wanted badly to leave that country that she failed to tell any member of her family and relatives in Iloilo and Manila that she would be among the first batch of evacuees coming home.

“I still don't know where I'll be going,” Marivic said, staring at the rain, oblivious to people hugging and embracing each other.

Then she burst into tears.

Between sobs, Borras said fear always clutched her heart while inside their home in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
“It was frightening. You could feel the ground shake whenever there was an explosion,” she said.

At night, she said she, her husband Ammad Saed, and their baby slept at the house of their nanny for fear that the Israelis might target the power facility near their home.

Even when she and her daughter moved to the Philippine relocation center--the Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal church--in Sassine, Beirut, she and other Filipinos would scream whenever there was a sound of something akin to an explosion.

“I prayed that I could get back home,” Borras said, her doubts of surviving propped up by bombed roads while riding on the bus from Northern Lebanon to Damascus, Syria. She said she still couldn't heave a sigh of relief when their plane stopped first in Karachi, Pakistan and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

I had so many things in my mind throughout the flight, Borras said.

Flights
AS of this writing, an estimated 700 Filipinos would have arrived from Lebanon where an estimated 30,000 temporarily lived and worked when a two-decade peace settled in that country.

Philippine foreign affairs officials say they plan to bring home as many Filipinos as conditions and resources would allow.

Febe Pingol, who lived only five kilometers from the heavily-bombarded airport in Beirut, is worried for Filipinos still Lebanon.

Pingol said the relocation site in Sassine is becoming crowded and food supply is not enough to feed those seeking shelter at the church.

Pingol said since most of the goods are imported into Lebanon, Philippine government officials couldn't do much.

With the Israeli blockade, she expects supplies to further decrease as more Filipinos throng the lone relocation center in Beirut.

According to Pingol, former chairwoman of Western Visayas Association in Lebanon, some Filipinos, mostly in domestic work, couldn't go there as their employers would not allow them to leave.

It's only those abandoned by their employers who are free to go anywhere, Pingol said.

In the center, talk has pointed to Filipinos calling the embassy in Beirut for help and officials arguing with their adamant employers.

Pingol added there were also Filipinos who fled with their employers to the mountains and thus were unable to go to the relocation site.

Pingol said she decided to go to the center because her 10-year-old son has become deeply affected by the strife.
Her son refused to let go of her hands during the course of the interview.

Their stay, however, would be short-lived since Pingol said they would join her husband currently working in Qatar.
“Dun naman ako magtatrabaho,” she said.

Limon, o n the other hand, said he's hoping the situation in Lebanon would “normalize” so he can return there sooner than later.

“My boss told me I can return once it is safe again there,” Limon said. He's capitalizing on his employer's promise that Limon can work for him again.

But for Borras, her husband's arrival from Egypt would help her feel complete again.

For now, these Filipinos could only hope not only a bright future for Lebanon but for their families.


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