VICE President Jejomar Binay on Thursday assured the safety of the more than 800,000 Filipino workers in the United Arab Emirates following the rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Binay, who is in the UAE, said the Philippines was prepared to secure the Filipino workers’ safety in case anything happened.
“I urge the Philippine embassies in the Middle East to prepare and review their contingency plans should we need to evacuate or repatriate our [workers],” Binay said.
He said a fund was available for emergency purposes, and that the embassies were aware that they could use that fund if necessary.
“You can rest assured your embassy is ready for whatever may happen as a result of the Iran and Saudi Arabia problem,” Binay said.
Binay said one of the reasons he went to the UAE was to see the impact of the Saudi-Iran conflict on the Filipino workers there.
“So far, everything is normal [in the UAE] but I assured the Filipino community that this is not the first time we are facing this kind of crisis,” Binay said.
He repeated his call for a clear government policy on the payment of blood money to save Filipino workers from the death penalty in the Middle East.
“Having clear-cut guidelines on the use of blood money would greatly speed up the process of saving [Filipinos] from the death penalty in the Arab countries where the Sharia law applies,” Binay said.
He said he supported the inclusion of a P100-million legal assistance fund for migrant Filipinos in the budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs initiated by Senator Nancy Binay.