FOREIGN Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. is flying to Poland to personally oversee the repatriation of Filipinos from Ukraine as the death toll continues to rise a few hours after Russia launched military attacks on Ukraine cities and military bases Thursday.
In a tweet, Locsin said he will be accompanied by DFA Assistant Secretary Jaime Victor Ledda and his protocol officer George Pineda.
“I’m going with Assec Jet Ledda and @georgexpineda my protocol to personally see to the safety of my people at Ukrainian border. Deeply grateful to Poland. We’ll never forget this,” Locsin said.
The DFA Secretary did not say when his trip will be in his tweet posted around 3:47am Friday. But he is presumably flying to Poland from Paris, where he has been attending the Indo Pacific conference EU-Asean meeting. There are 180 Filipinos in Ukraine, mostly domestic helpers in capital Kyiv.
Only 10 Filipinos have volunteered to be repatriated since last week. The Philippine Embassy in Warsaw and the honorary consulate general in Kyiv have tried to reach out to Filipinos in Ukraine to come home amid the threat of a Russian invasion into Ukraine, but many Filipinos opted to stay, thinking that the war is just a western media hype and that they may not be able to come back to work if the war rumor fizzles.
When Kyiv was attacked Thursday, OFWs called the Embassy officials temporarily stationed in the western city Lviv, near the border. However, three military facilities in Lviv have been under attack by Russian troops as well, so it’s not clear how safe the land travel would be from Kyiv to Lviv for evacuating OFWs.
Locsin said Poland has agreed to give border passes to Filipinos from Ukraine. “Poland finally agreed to let ours in sans EU visas; not heard anything from Russia on our request re: its closest border. Most Filipinos in Ukraine are grateful guests and want to stick it out with their warm welcoming neighbors.,” he tweeted.