The group International Seafarers Action Center (ISAC) calls on the US-Marcos regime to protect Filipino ship workers and migrants from Israel’s genocide against Palestine and its invasions in various Middle East countries.

In recent months, a caregiver in Israel died, and four Filipino ship workers were killed when the MV Eternety C sank in the Red Sea. The group expressed condolences to the victims.

ISAC states that Israel’s aggression in the Middle East directly affects thousands of Filipino migrant workers on land and at sea in the region.

“The government should protect Filipino seafarers and OFWs from the ravages of war. Instead of aggressively marketing Filipinos to work abroad, the government must ensure that no Filipino seafarer and landbased workers shall be put in harm’s way,” ISAC said.

“More importantly, the government must provide decent jobs, land and livelihood here in our own land to stop our people from leaving their families in order to survive,” the group added.

According to the group, thousands of Filipinos are affected by the wars in Iran and Palestine. The Marcos regime must be proactive in doing something to ending the war. The Philippines should support cases at the International Court of Justice and the ICC for war crimes and genocide of Netanyahu’s Zionist regime in Israel. The state must also withdraw its support for Israel and stop buying arms from it.

“The Philippines must join the enlightened group of nations in the Hague Group, led by Colombia and South Africa, who have decided to act and impose sanctions to force Israel to end the war and genocide in Palestine. We should be part of these efforts against war in the Middle East,” ISAC explained.

“America’s EDCA sites must go. US warmongering and war exercises in the West Philippine Sea puts our people in harm’s way. Wherever the US war machine is involved like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Gaza, it is the people who suffer. We shall not allow this to happen in our soil! the group added.