5 Filipinos who crossed to Jordan from West Bank to arrive in PH

MANILA, Philippines: The five distressed Filipinos from the West Bank who were able to cross into Jordan are set to arrive in the Philippines on Friday, November 24, the Philippine Embassy in Amman said.

To date, a total of 115 Filipino nationals remain in the West Bank, including nine nuns, 21 Filipino workers and 85 resident Filipinos, the embassy said.

The Philippine embassy in Jordan has concurrent jurisdiction over the State of Palestine.

Photo courtesy of Philippine Embassy in Amman

Philippine Ambassador to Jordan Wilfredo Santos and Labor Attaché Armi Evangel Peña on Thursday sent off the repatriates at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman.

In a statement, the embassy said it made appropriate representations with Jordanian authorities to «facilitate» the entry of the unidentified Filipinos from the West Bank to Jordan.

«The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has led to a corresponding increase in the level of violence in the West Bank and made the five Filipinos, consisting of two OFWs and a family of three, to decide to return to the Philippines,» it added.

On November 22, Santos, other embassy officials, including personnel of the Migrant Workers' Office in Jordan welcomed the Filipinos at the King Hussein Border Crossing, linking the West Bank and Jordan.

A separate embassy team assisted the Filipinos at the Allenby Border crossing at the Israeli side prior to their entry to Jordan, where they were issued transit visas.

The transportation and hotel accommodation, as well as the plane tickets for the three resident Filipinos were shouldered by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) while the plane fare for the two overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were covered by the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW)

The repatriation on Thursday of the five Filipinos from the West Bank is the second undertaken by the government.

The first batch of repatriates involved two Filipino workers who were repatriated last November 8, after Alert Level 2 was raised in the West Bank in October.