Imee warns Filipinos to be careful of Muslims who could be siding with Hamas
Senator Imee Marcos on Sunday warned Filipinos to be careful of Muslims in the Philippines who could be siding with Hamas
“We are afraid that the country will (be)... a target of Isis or Hamas supporters, the ones who are who are known as domestic terrorists. We fear that their support for those groups will be revived or be instigated,” Marcos said.
“We should first strengthen the security of the Filipinos in Israel. Secondly, we should ensure that our Muslim brothers would not be angered if we side with others. But in spite of all this, we condemn all kinds of terrorism,” she added.
Marcos, the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, added that Filipinos in Gaza were left in a dire situation after it was bombed.
“The UN said that the bombing of Gaza is a form of abuse and it is a violation of human rights since the people there are left with no water, no electricity, no food, and no medicine that can enter or exit Gaza. So Filipinos in that area are in a scary situation,” she said.
Marcos said that despite the government raising Alert Level 3 in Gaza, the repatriation of Filipinos was still voluntary.
“No one is forcing them (to be repatriated). So the other Filipinos, even if their lives are endangered there, they are thinking that if they return to the Philippines they will die of hunger since they don’t have jobs here. That’s why they don’t want to go home. While the others are being heroic, like the caregivers who do not want to leave their elderly patients,” she said.
She urged Filipinos to go back to the country immediately and not wait until the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“I am calling on OFWs, please, can you not wait until the last minute to decide to go home? Because this conflict will drag on and the war will just continue,” she said.
Marcos also advised that the government should start spending more on the country’s defense since it could not solely depend on the help of the United States.
“We need to be self-sufficient. We should enhance our self-defense posture. We need to spend more on defense because our ally cannot do it. They are dealing with the war in Ukraine. Now they are also dealing with the conflict in Israel, and then they also have to deal with the conflict in the West Philippine Sea. They might forget us with all these conflicts going on in the world,” she said.
Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel on October 7, but Israel has retaliated. Foreign news reports say Israel is preparing ground action vs Hamas.
Three Filipinos were identified as among those slain in the conflict, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
