The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) on Tuesday, Oct. 10, said there is still no deployment ban in the war-torn country of Israel, which was recently attacked by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In a Malacañang media briefing, DMW officer-in-charge Undersecretary Hans Leo Cacdac explained that Alert Level 3 must be raised to hold deployment.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said no alert level status has been imposed in Israel yet.
“Right now, what’s proceeding is the deployment of hotel workers. So, right now because of the alert…kasi (because) it takes Alert Level 3 to hold the deployment; Alert Level 2 for new hires; and Alert Level 3 for all types of workers,” Cacdac said.
“So, wala pa tayo sa (we’re not yet on) Alert Level 2; so, technically wala pa tayong (there is still no) deployment ban sa ngayon (so far) but again the situation we are in is that we have a government-to-government hiring arrangement with our Israeli counterparts. So, it’s a two-way street – we have to be well-coordinated with our Israeli Labor and Immigration counterparts before we even proceed kahit na walang ban,” he added.
According to Cacdac, the deployment of workers to Israel is currently on hold because the Ben Gurion International Airport is closed.
“There’s a government-to-government (G2G) hiring arrangement in partnership with the Israeli labor and immigration authorities especially with respect to hotel workers,” he said.
The DMW official noted that they are hand-in-hand with their agency counterpart in Israel.
“So, we are in close coordination with the Israeli PIBA – that’s the name of the government agency counterpart that we have and at a proper time deployment will resume especially for our G2G hotel workers for Israel,” said Cacdac.
There are around 30,000 Filipinos in Israel, per the records of Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority as of December 2021.