MANILA: More than 40,000 Filipinos in South Korea are ready for evacuation in case tensions in the region erupt into a full-scale war, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.
DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said that while the situation in South Korea remains normal, they have set in place contingency plans including designating exit points for Filipino evacuees.
“We give utmost importance to 40,000 Filipinos in South Korea and the embassy is prepared to undertake a contingency plan,” Hernandez said in Filipino.
If evacuation becomes necessary, Filipinos may proceed to Busan or at any convergence area in Seoul or in Daejeon before they are repatriated.
The DFA said last Sunday that Filipinos in South Korea were put on “heightened alert” in the wake of North Korea’s declaration of a “state of war.”
But he stressed “the overall situation remains calm and normal as life proceeds as usual without any disruption throughout South Korea.”
At Malacañang, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte expressed hopes that diplomacy would prevail and render evacuation unnecessary.
“We were able to do it in several other countries. Hopefully, we will also be able to do it but we hope that it will not be necessary. And we are one with everybody in hoping that the tensions decrease in that particular area,” Valte said.
“We’ve already made our position known on that in several instances. And I think, at this particular point in time, we are focused on making sure that the preparations that we’ve put in place will seek to secure our nationals who are there,” she said.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
