Hard choice faces Philippine diaspora caught in the Middle East conflict

Filipino workers flee the Middle East after the US and Israel attacked Iran.

No Filipinos were killed in the US and Israeli airstrikes inside Iran, but the conflict has claimed a Filipino life in the crossfire: Mary Ann Velasquez de Vera was killed in Tel Aviv by an Iranian missile strike on February 28.

The  a 32-year-old caregiver was mortally struck by shrapnel while selflessly  transporting her elderly ward to a bomb shelter. Her employer survived. De Vera didn't.

Velasquez de Vera was found in critical condition after the ballistic missile struck next to an apartment building in the coastal city. Paramedics pronounced her dead while rushing her to the hospital. She was identified by her husband.

Mary Anne de Vera, the first Filipino fatality of the 
US-Israeli attacks against Iran.

A previous employer called Velasquez de Vera "an angel on earth" for the loving care she provided for their late mother.

Meanwhile,  the estimated 1,100 to 1,400 Filipinos living in Iran find themselves navigating a precarious landscape. Most of these individuals are long-term residents with deep roots through marriage, while about a hundred are documented workers. Their situation is a small but high-stakes piece of a much larger puzzle, as they represent just a fraction of the 2.2 million Filipinos currently living and working across the Middle East in construction, hospitality, healthcare and homecare.

With the threat of more Israeli and US military action looming, the Philippine government is shifting into a high-gear response to prevent a repeat of past regional tragedies. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has placed all diplomatic posts on high alert, and Iran remains under Alert Level 2, a status that effectively halts new labor deployments and urges those already there to limit non-essential movement.

Behind the scenes, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Migrant Workers are already mapping out "Plan B" scenarios, including land-based evacuation routes through Turkmenistan should Iranian airspace become a no-fly zone.

Hundreds of Filipino workers have already returned to the Philippines from various Middle East countries.

For the millions of Filipinos scattered from Tehran to Tel Aviv working in construction, healthcare, nannies and service. the government’s message is one of cautious readiness, emphasizing that while the goal is to stay safe in place, the exit doors are being prepped just in case the "big one" finally hits the region’s stability.

In retaliation to the US and Israeli attacks, Iran has responded with drones targeting US bases in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait — all countries that host large Filipino communities. The Department of Foreign Affairs estimates that the four countries are home to nearly 1.5 million Filipinos combined: 973,000 in the UAE, 250,000 in Qatar, 211,000 in Kuwait, and 56,000 in Bahrain.

The economic refugee

To understand why Mary Ann V. de Vera was in that building in Tel Aviv, you have to look past the "Bagong Bayani" (Modern Hero) rhetoric the government has hung on the Overseas Fililpino Worker (OFW). 

Government and media call them "heroes" to mask the fact that they are economic refugees. 

When the Department of Foreign Affairs raises "Alert Level 4" (Mandatory Evacuation), it is fighting a losing battle against the Philippine economy. In 2014, when Libyan militias were beheading construction workers, the Philippine government sent ships to evacuate 13,000 Filipinos. Only 2,000 boarded. The rest hid in the desert, terrified that the government would "rescue" them into joblessness.

View from the Edge

Mary Ann didn't die because she loved danger. She died because she was doing the job she was paid to do — protecting her patient — in a country that offered her a future her own homeland could not. The ₱130,000 ($2,220) monthly pension for life  is a life-changing sum for her family in Pangasinan, but it is a grim receipt for the export of our people.

For the OFWs, "Alert Level 2" in Iran feels like a recurring nightmare. The Middle East hosts over 2 million Filipinos, meaning every regional flare-up triggers a dilemma.

It is a grim calculus known as kapit sa patalim (clutching the knife). For the vast majority of OFWs, the fear of the low pay in the Philippines is statistically and psychologically greater than the fear of missiles in the Middle East.

Consider the wage gap. A caregiver in Israel earns $1,500–$2,000 USD (₱85k–₱110k). In the Philippines, the same job pays less than $150.

The choice for OFWs is tough. To repatriate is to plunge 5-10 dependent family members back into poverty.

Because Mary Ann was killed by a "hostile action" while legally employed, Israel's National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi) has classified her family as victims of terror. This triggers a (for Filipinos) lifetime pension indexed to the Israeli wage — roughly ₱130,000 ($2,220) per month — granted to her family in Pangasinan is generous compared the average caregiver monthly salary in the Philippines is roughly ₱22,000 ($377). A highly-trained nurse in the Philippines earns about ₱18,000 ($308) to ₱28,000 ($480).

The irony is sharp: It took an Iranian missile in Tel Aviv to give a Filipino family the financial security that a lifetime of labor in the Philippines never could.

For the majority of OFWs in the Middle East, the choice is clear. They stay. They hide. They pray the rockets miss.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

FYI: To stay connected as the situation in the region develops, Filipinos inIran and their families should keep these official contact details close at hand. The primary lifeline for those in Tehran is the Philippine Embassy's 24/7 Assistance to Nationals (ATN) hotline at +98 912 213 6801, which is also available via WhatsApp for those who might have limited mobile signal.

For matters regarding passports or visas, the Consular hotline at +98 912 105 5637 is the number to call, or you can reach out via email at tehran.pe@dfa.gov.ph

For broader support, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) operates a dedicated One Repatriation Command Center accessible through the 1348 hotline in the Philippines or (+632) 1348 for those calling internationally. Staying vigilant and keeping these numbers saved could make all the difference if the regional situation necessitates a quick move to safety.

Filipino workers’ lawsuit claims refinery "abandoned' them during hurricane

In 2021, Hrricane Ida damaged Gulf Coast refineries where hundreds of Filipinos worked.

A lawsuit brought by Filipino oil workers against a major offshore oil refinery brings attention to the huge role Filipinos are playing in the oil industry.

Filipino offshore workers allege that Grand Isle Shipyards brought them to Louisiana to work as welders and pipefitters but then underpaid them, unreasonably restricted their movements, and otherwise treated them worse than local and US-born workers.

When Hurricane Ida battered the Louisiana Gulf Coast with 150-mile winds in August 2021 thousands of people evacuated but the 10 Filipino workers named in the legal complaint allege the company "abandoned" them in a bunkhouse with little food or medicine.

“I could not think of anything to do but to pray and to pray,” Renato Decena told The Associated Press.
Among other issues cited in court documents, US-born workers could come and go as they pleased, but Filipino workers could not leave the building without risking deportation.

When COVID hit, it is alleged that Filipino workers were quarantined to a boat with limited medical supplies while US-born workers were sent to hotels.

“Not one medicine, not one tablet, not one vitamin. Nobody gave these things to us. We were on our own,” another worker, Rosel Hernandez told the AP.

When Hurricane Ida struck, the lawsuit alleges only Filipino workers were left to ride out the storm while the others evacuated. The litigation is pending and has not yet been set for trial.

The suit seeks class action status, in which case, could include up to 60 other Filipino employees of Grand Island.

The company has denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim accusing the workers of defamation and has not responded to media requests.

According to AP reports, the US District Judge Carl Barbier dismissed the defamation allegations in a Jan. 20 order but said the company could pursue them again once the workers’ lawsuit is concluded.The Filipino refinery workers who were recruited from the Philippines were allowed to come to the US under federally granted visas to the Louisiana-based company.

NOLA

Renato Decena and Rosel Hernandez are part of a lawsuit against Grand Island Shipyward.

Philippines' overseas workers (OFWs)

The lawsuit shines a light on yet another industry in which Filipinos have been recruited for their job skills.

According to statistics from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration., there are 40,000 Filipinos working in the offshore oil and gas industry in various parts of the world, said former Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia Jr, who first approached refineries in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

About 2,000 of them are in the United States, including in Louisiana, which accounts for 23 percent of total US crude oil production.

“Although Filipinos first set foot in Louisiana as early as the 1700s, it was only in 2005 that workers from the Philippines began making their presence felt in the offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico,” Cuisia said.

Overseas employment of Filipino citizens has been a key part of the Philippines’ economy since the government of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s, according to nonpartisan research and analysis organization the Migration Policy Institute.

It is well documented that the Philippines is a major source of health professionals worldwide. Teachers from the Philippines is also helping fill in the gap in some US school districts. Skilled workers from the Philippines are employed in the Middle East for construction workers, nurses and domestic workers.

The number of Filipino workers who were employed abroad during the period of April to September 2021 was estimated at 1.83 million.

The Philippines’ worldwide remittances — money sent back to family and friends from Filipino workers employed abroad — totaled more than $36 billion in 2021, or almost  10% of the country's GDP, according to data from the World Bank.

The economic strategy has been criticized because it makes the workers vulnerable to abuse by their employers. he recent rape and killing of Jullebee Cabilis Ranara, a pregnant Filipino worker in Kuwait has shaken the country to its core.

Ranara's charred body was found last month, discarded in the desert, says NPR. Kuwaiti media report that an autopsy revealed Ranara, a mother of two, was pregnant at the time of her death. The teenage son of her employer has been arrested as a suspect. An investigation is ongoing and the Philippines has temporarily suspended sending domestic workers to Kuwait, where 250,000 Filipinos reside.

Ranara's tragic story is not unusual for migrant workers. Human rights groups have reported that up to 10,000 migrant workers from South Asia, the Philippines, and other countries die in the Middle East each year, according to the Guardian.

In January of 2018, the Philippines suspended sending workers to Kuwait on Friday, a day after then-President Rodrigo Duterte said abuse by employers there had driven several domestic helpers to suicide. The last straw was the discovery of a Filipino domestic worker's body found in an apartment freezer.

Later in May, the Philippines issued a statement saying a new agreement offered “additional guarantees that we asked our Kuwaiti friends to extend.”

The vague statement lacking details added: “The more than 250,000 Filipinos in Kuwait can now be assured of prompt and effective assistance if needed.”

Strong demand for Filipino workers

Remittances have become such an important part of the Philippine economy that despite the vulnerability to abuse, the Philippines Department of Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople predicted that 2023 will be a busy year for her office.

Ople said the DMW hopes to deploy more workers overseas in 2023, noting that the Philippines fielded 486,673 OFWs from July to November 2022, reports Rappler. She reported that there are emerging markets and pending bilateral labor talks with Romania, Hungary, and Portugal.

Portugal is interested in offering jobs to Filipinos for their tourism sector, while Singapore has also raised interest in hiring more Filipino health workers, she added.

The importance of OFWs to the Philippine economy speaks to the dire state of the Philippines, that cannot get investors to create jobs in that country, despite its skilled,  well-educated workforce. The Philippines has lagged behind regional peers in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in attracting foreign investment, says the US State Department.

Like most other overseas Filipino workers, the reason they sought overseas work is more personal than the geopolitical and worldwide economic trends. Refinery workers Decena and Hernandez said the better-paying jobs in the United States help them provide for their families.

“We have dreams for our family and children,” Hernandez said in an email. “We want them to have a better future.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Homeland security bans Filipino workers from H-2B visa program

UPDATED: Jan. 31, 12 p.m. to include information on Mar-A-Lago.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it is banning Filipino workers from the H-2B visa program for at least a year, based on a finding that as much as 40 percent of H-2B workers from the Philippines "overstay" beyond the period their visa allows them to work in the United States.

About 1000 visas a year are used by Filipinos in recent years and the impact varies according to region.

"The Philippines is to Guam what Mexico is to California," said John Robertson, president of AmOrient Engineering and an official in the Guam Contractors Association.

On Guam, Filipino H-2B visa holders work mainly in construction. Historically, local worker numbers haven't met Guam's need for a mass of workers committed to work day after day doing field construction work.

Guam's ties to the Philippine labor market also became crucial during the hotel construction boom on Guam between the 1980s and 1990s.

And now that Guam is in the midst of another military buildup – with the Department of Defense's development of a Marine Corps base, in addition to the Air Force and Navy bases that have been here a long time – more workers from the Philippines are being brought in and more are expected to be brought in.

On the mainland, H-2B visa holders work in businesses like amusement parks that need extra staff during summer or ski resorts that need help during the winter months are most likely to use this program. Other businesses that use this program include construction, golf courses, cruise lines, resorts, seasonal recreational facilities and other tourism based businesses.

These positions can be for both skilled and unskilled workers. So there isn’t a requirement that the job be for those with a college degree or equivalent, like there is for the H1B Visa program. But businesses do need to be able to show or explain why they need to hire foreign nationals. So if there’s no shortage of U.S. workers who are willing and able to do the job, businesses may not be able to hire using the H2B Visa program.

In fiscal year 2017, 64 agricultural visas and 767 seasonal work visas were issued in the Philippines, according to State Department data.

The federal notice does not affect those who currently hold valid visas, it said, though they would be affected if they applied for an extension.

“DHS and DOS are concerned about the high volume of trafficking victims from the Philippines who were originally issued H-2B visas and the potential that continued H-2B visa issuance may encourage or serve as an avenue for future human trafficking from the Philippines,” the notice read.

A civil rights nonprofit based in Los Angeles that has represented survivors of human trafficking from the Philippines said the decision was "short-sighted and not the way to mitigate human trafficking."

“We have seen that many Filipinos in the United States endure human trafficking, deceptive recruitment practices and other forms of labor exploitation,” Christopher Lapinig, registered legal services attorney at Advancing Justice-LA, said in a statement.

"Filipinos do suffer from human trafficking as a result of abused H-2A and H-2B visas," Laboni Hoq, litigation director at AAAJ — Los Angeles, said in a statement. "The government needs to provide greater protections for H-2A and H-2B visa holders, not cut off access to these visas entirely."
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“Instead of targeting vulnerable populations, the Administration should address greedy corporations and abusive employers," said Alvina Yeh, executive director of Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance.  

Aside from the Philippines, Ethiopia and the Dominican Republic were also removed from the list of countries eligible for the said visa programs.

In a statement dated Jan. 22, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs noted that the U.S. was within its rights to deny the visas and reminded Filipinos to follow immigration rules.

"Nonetheless, the Philippines is open to the possibility of working with the United States in addressing these issues, as it has previously done so with similar concerns involving the Filipino Community there," the statement read.

By the way, Trump benefits

Despite the ban targetting Filipinos, the H-2B visa program has actually expanded beyond the 66,000 cap. Last year, the Trump administration allowed an extra 15,000 H-2B visas to be allocated.

Funny, one of the employers who has benefited from the H-2B program are Trump properties, including Mar-A-Lago, according to Vox.

As part of the program, businesses must pay round-trip airfare or bus fare to bring the approved workers from abroad (the vast majority of them come from Mexico). The H-2B database shows requests from Mar-a-Lago dating back to 2013, and this practice has not stopped since Trump became president.

And a Vox analysis of hiring records for seasonal workers at three Trump properties in New York and Florida revealed that only one out of 144 jobs went to a U.S. worker from 2016 to the end of 2017. Foreign guest workers with H-2B visas got the rest. Since they were hired before the ban was implemented, their immigration status won't be affected - at least, not until they try to extend the visa.

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FilAm History: Filipino nurses vital to U.S. healthcare

DID YOU HEAR the joke at the Emmy's last month about Filipino nurses?

One of the best jokes of awards show came from the opening monologue by hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che who questioned how the popular television show ER could go on for 15 seasons without a single Filipino nurse.

“TV has always had a diversity problem I mean, can you believe they did 15 seasons of ER without one Filipino nurse?" asked Che. "Have you been to a hospital?

That acknowledgement, even if it was part of a comedy routine, has been long overdue.

Considering that through the years, tens of thousands of Filipino nurses have moved to the U.S. to help fill in the perennial nursing shortage. In some urban hospitals it would be hard to miss them.

We might also point out that this gross oversight plagues practically all U.S. TV series. Grey's Anatomy, in its 15th season, mentioned a Filipina nurse only once. Nurse Bokhee, a Korean American nurse, has been in almost every operating room scene over the show's 15 years, 

Adding insult to injury, Grey's Anatomy is set in Seattle, home of the fifth largest concentration of Filipinos in the United States. Except for that one instance, the absence of Filipino nurses  in Grey's Anatomy is a glaring omission for a show that prides itself on its diversity. 

As Al Jazeera cites in a video the news agency produced last year, Filipino nurses make up about 20 percent of California's nurses.

Filipino nurses began arriving in the U.S. as early as the turn of the 20th Century, under the Pensionado Act of 1903, which funded American educations for citizens of the Philippines, a U.S. colony at the time. The migration streams continued in waves throughout the 20th Century.

During the 1970s, the U.S. and other industrialized countries experienced nursing shortages, as more work opportunities began to open to women, making nursing, with its long hours and high stress, a less appealing option. But well-educated and English-speaking Filipino nurses provided the perfect (but, underpaid) replacement workforce.
 As a result, Filipinos on H1-B visa helped make them the fifth-largest foreign-born immigrant group in the United States in 2015, and they're overrepresented in certain industries like nursing. 

Filipina nurses have been coming to the U.S. since the start of the 20th century.

The flow of nurses from the Philippines, continues today. According to recent statistics by the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the Philippines again topped the number of foreigners applying for the U.S. nursing licensure exam in 2017. A total of 7,791 nurses applied for the first time – 23% higher than the 2016 figure of 6,322.
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Instagram star slammed for criticizing Kuwait laws giving Filipino workers a day off

INSTAGRAM

Sondos Alqattan has blocked her social media accounts because of her comments about Filipino maids.

A NEW LAW, giving Filipino migrants in Kuwait a day off and requiring them to keep their passports in their own possession, angered a Kuwaiti Instagram star that she unleashed an post criticizing the law on her beauty vlog.

"The new laws that have been passed are like a pathetic film," said makeup artist Sondos Alqattan in a viral video last week. 

"For her to take a day off every week, that's four days a month. Those are the days that she'll be out. And we don't know what she'll be doing on those days, with her passport on her," said Alqattan, who has 2.3 million followers on Instagram blog in which she gives beauty tips.

Along with a mandatory weekly day off, recent reforms in Kuwaiti regulations for Filipino domestic workers also require that workers keep their own passports with them. Before the changes, employers could confiscate the passports of domestic help. 

"How can you have a 'servant' at home who keeps their own passport with them?" asked Alqattan.

Her ugly comments come after a months-long diplomatic row, between Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Kuwait, over the treatment of domestic workers. 

The controversy began in February when a murdered Filipina maid, Joanna Demafelis, 29, was found in her employer's freezer in Kuwait City. Duterte then spoke out about the "inhuman" treatment of migrant workers and banned workers from working in Kuwait. As part of the Filipino diaspora, Filipinos have found employment in Kuwait and other Middle East countries.

Overseas Filipino workers often send money back to the Philippines. Their remittances form a major portion of the Philippine economy.

In recent years, the oil rich nations of the Middle East is a popular destination for overseas Filipinos where they can find work that offer higher pay than what they can earn in the Philippines.  In Kuwait, many of 250,000 imported Filipino workers are employed as domestic workers and construction workers. 

The ban was lifted after the two countries worked out an agreement for safety guarantees for Filipinos employed in Kuwait. The very agreements that prompted the outburst from the self-anointed beauty expert.

Not surprisingly, Alqattan's heartless and self-centered views were lambasted online with some of her critics calling for a boycott of beauty products associated by her. 

In the Philippines, Migrante and SANDIGAN (Samahan ng mga DH sa Gitnang Silangang), which advocate on behalf of overseas workers, vehemently condemned Alqattan's comments and asked for an apology.

"By projecting herself as a slave-owner, Sondos exhibits intoxication in her overinflated ego and false sense of superiority," the groups said in a statement.

"There is no doubt that maltreatment of Filipinos in Kuwait and in many countries persist," the statement continued. "What is even more outrageous is that the Duterte regime continues to act as a pimp who willingly furnishes foreign countries with cheap and docile workers from the Philippines to serve as cash cows for his pro-elite TRAIN and Build, Build, Build lunacy.

"An apology from Sondos will surely give respite to our offended netizens but what OFWs ultimately long for is the total elimination of the roots of forced migration. As long as the Duterte regime stubbornly refuses to impose a national minimum wage, end contractualization, pursue national industrialization and institute genuine agrarian reform in the Philippines, there will be more cases like that of Demafelis and we shall hear more grim stories in the future about OFWs being at the receiving end of insults and inhumane treatment overseas from cynics like Sondos Alqattan."

There has been no apology from Alqattan and her social media accounts have been blocked since her comments have gone viral. 

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