September 13, 2001, Philippine Star , Italy, Israel sending home 200,000 Filipino illegals , Mayen Jaymalin,

September 13, 2001, Philippine Star , Italy, Israel sending home 200,000 Filipino illegals , Mayen Jaymalin,

While the deportation of an estimated 400,000 undocumented Filipinos in Malaysia has been briefly suspended, another batch of at least 200,000 Filipinos staying illegally in Italy and Israel are expecting expulsion in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks last year in the United States.

Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said many countries have launched massive crackdowns aimed at weeding out illegals, which could affect the employment of at least 200,000 undocumented Filipinos. There are an estimated 130,000 Filipinos working without proper permits in Italy alone; another 30,000 are in Israel.

"The world has changed after the Sept. 11 tragedy. All of a sudden, the world has become a little paranoid of illegals in their midst," Sto. Tomas said yesterday. She said several countries with large concentrations of Filipino workers are expected to follow suit. The Commission on Filipino Overseas Workers estimates that there are about 1.6 million undocumented Filipinos worldwide, but gave no breakdown.

One Filipino diplomat said Saudi Arabia and Italy were the top two destinations of overseas Filipino workers. In November last year the United States started enforcing the Aviation Security Act, which bans the hiring of non-US nationals in all American airports, Sto. Tomas said.

More than 60 Filipino illegals were deported from the US earlier this year. However, Sto. Tomas said the new labor policy in the US was "negligible" because many of the Filipinos there were already naturalized citizens and highly qualified to look for other jobs. The estimated 2.14 million Filipinos working in the US remitted $3.7 billion from January to November last year.

In Italy, the majority of Filipinos entered the country using tourist visas and found jobs as caregivers and domestic helpers. While Israel is yet to announce the start of its drive against illegal workers, Sto. Tomas said the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) had been informed already. DOLE and local government units (LGUs) nationwide would soon come out with a program to address the problem of illegal recruitment, she said. DOLE would provide the LGUs with a list of licensed agencies and pre-employment seminars for prospective overseas workers would be held. "We are strongly encouraging would-be overseas workers to avail of the government’s improved documentation services so as not to suffer the perils facing undocumented workers especially at this time," she said.

Seismic shift

Meanwhile, in the seismic shift in world geopolitics sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks, the US has found itself more engaged in Asia than at any time since the Vietnam War. A year on from the assaults on New York and the Pentagon, events have proved that though distant from the mainland US, Asia plays a more crucial role than ever in the security of the world’s last superpower.

Within months of the attacks, Washington launched a war in Afghanistan, a graveyard for centuries of foreign invaders, in pursuit of terror suspect Osama bin Laden, and his Taliban protectors. Simultaneously, with its Afghan campaign on the line, Washington was forced to step in to cool boiling tensions between India and Pakistan, with the nuclear rivals, both trying to twist the US anti-terror war to fit their decades-long struggle, heading towards war.

And as it flushed out Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network from the caves and mountains of Afghanistan, Washington was forced to look elsewhere for the group’s potential hiding places, forcing it to rejig its policy on Southeast Asia. Washington’s strategy has been to encourage Asian nations to crack down on extremist groups by prioritizing law enforcement, border controls and intelligence cooperation. And it has placed renewed importance on its alliances in the region, bolstered by tens of thousands of troops in Japan and South Korea.

"For 50 years the United States has been the balance wheel of security in Asia," said Secretary of State Colin Powell in a speech to the Asia Society in June. "To this day, Asia’s stability depends on our forward-deployed presence and our key alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Australia." In the 2000 election campaign, President George W. Bush was pilloried for being unable to name the Pakistani President when ambushed by a Boston television reporter. But soon after Sept. 11, Bush nominated President Pervez Musharraf as a key US friend, after his foreign policy team strong-armed the General into joining the US campaign against his ally the Taliban. Following a terror attack on its parliament in December, India pressured Washington to press Pakistan to halt incursions of militants across the Line of Control in Kashmir.

As tensions soared, Powell led feverish telephone diplomacy to head off a South Asian war and has made two trips to the region this year to forestall a conflict which would have devastating consequences for the US campaign in Afghanistan. The post-Sept. 11 shakedown had a lasting effect on South Asia policy, forcing Washington to dispense with the strategy of leaning closer to New Delhi, a more natural partner due to its democracy and burgeoning market economy than military-ruled Pakistan.

Policymakers returned to the balancing act of maintaining good ties with both India and Pakistan. While satisfied with toppling the Taliban from Afghanistan, the jury is still out on the Bush administration's campaign in the country, with doubt still surrounding the fate of Bin Laden and questions over the viability of the pro-US new Afghan government.

Washington also turned its attention to routing out al-Qaeda sympathizers and allies of Bin Laden, thought to be taking refuge in the ethnic and religious chequerboard of Southeast Asia. "One perceived logical place that(the terrorist) go to is the Southeast Asian region," said Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, who visited Washington to represent the Arroyo government that is given high marks for its help in the US anti-terror effort.

But its neighbor Indonesia is causing more grounds for concern despite earning Powell’s full confidence during a trip to Jakarta this month. Washington is concerned that Muslim militants with links to al-Qaeda are living in Indonesia and its anxiety is behind a US move to slowly restore some military links with the Indonesia military broken off after East Timor violence three years ago.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations also committed in August to jointly battle terrorism, but privately US officials say that they are concerned that the group’s creed of non-interference in one another’s affairs will hamper the attempt. The anti-terror war has transformed US relations with Malaysia, where Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad parlayed support for the US campaign to rehabilitate himself in American eyes after being given the cold shoulder by the previous Clinton administration. Surprisingly, US relations with China, rocky at the best of times, have profited in the post-Sept. 11 world, with Washington pleased with intelligence sharing offered by Beijing and its diplomatic support of its campaign. - With reports from AFP