VTMBH Article: Body
The Ranka Manis family had just returned home from morning prayers at the mosque when a Filipino nurse relative from Iraq called up telling, we are anxiously preparing for the worst.
What future awaits you, your loved ones and your families? was the response posed by Potri Ranka Manis, a Filipino Muslim nurse in New York, to her cousin over the phone.
According to Ranka Manis, her cousin told her that hospitals have started stockpiling such supplies as blood, antibiotics and anesthetics. Aside from this, she was informed by her cousin that the Iraqi government recently began distributing two months worth of rations out of concern that the foodstuffs in their warehouses would be destroyed.
The country is already waiting for war, the New York-based Filipino nurse said, adding that her cousin is only among the six million Filipinos in the Middle East who would be menaced by a U.S. war on Iraq.
As President George W. Bush is hell-bent in waging war against Iraq, not only will the lives of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) be at stake but those of their families and loved ones back home, added Ranka Manis, who was a nurse for eight years in Saudi Arabia before transferring to New York during the Gulf War.
As Iraq braces for an expected attack from the United States, many OFWs appear defiant while quietly fretting that yet another in a long series of cataclysms is about to befall them.
Pres. Bush has insisted that America wants only regime change, meaning the ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and that a free and democratic Iraq is the ultimate goal. The United States had no quarrel with the Iraqi people, Bush told the United Nations last month. Theyve suffered too long enough in silent captivity.
But, the migrant Filipino workers and other Iraqis already face daily struggles, Ranka Manis said. Although I was in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, the hardship and horror were close at hand. Twelve years of United Nations sanctions, imposed after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, have crippled the economy, to the point where people depend on government handouts of staples like food, soap and cooking oil simply to survive, she noted.
The Kalipunan Migranteng Pilipino at Pamilya (KMPP), a Middle East-based organization of Filipino migrants and their families, and an affiliate of Migrante International also acknowledged, to one degree or another, that all ordinary people in the region are already uncomfortably familiar with the horror of war.
The migrant families alliance cited reports saying that during the Gulf War, two laser-guided bombs from a U.S. jet destroyed an air-raid shelter, killing about 400 civilians. UN allied forces expressed regrets about the deaths. It was tragic, said KMPP chairperson Samuel Santiago. Do the Americans really know about the sufferings of war. Is there a difference between an Iraqi child and an American child?
Santiago said the KMPP and Migrante International are also well aware that U.S. war with Iraq could well touch directly the migrant workers as well as ordinary Iraqi people. Our loved ones there are faced with the grave threat of losing their jobs and their lives.
Meanwhile, reports abound that Saddam is not admired by all Iraqi people. On the outside people smile, people clap about how wonderful he is and what he has achieved. But behind our faces people laugh at it all, said one Iraqi to a newspaper reporter.
I think Saddam Hussein is seen only as a ruler strong enough to stand up to the United States, Ranka Manis said her cousin said.
Indeed, there is a widespread report indicating that the Bush administrations confrontation with Saddam is not about eliminating weapons of mass destruction or the threat of terrorism but about securing Iraqs oil reserves.
Its all about oil. America wants Iraqs oil, said International A.N.S.W.E.R coalition, an anti-war organization based in New York.
That is a view shared by Iraqis and migrant workers in the Middle East who otherwise have no love for Saddam. Saddam has something that America wants, Ranka Manis said.
In many ways, however, both Saddam and Bush already appear to be on war footing. That prospect worries the world.
What future awaits you, your loved ones and your families? was the response posed by Potri Ranka Manis, a Filipino Muslim nurse in New York, to her cousin over the phone.
According to Ranka Manis, her cousin told her that hospitals have started stockpiling such supplies as blood, antibiotics and anesthetics. Aside from this, she was informed by her cousin that the Iraqi government recently began distributing two months worth of rations out of concern that the foodstuffs in their warehouses would be destroyed.
The country is already waiting for war, the New York-based Filipino nurse said, adding that her cousin is only among the six million Filipinos in the Middle East who would be menaced by a U.S. war on Iraq.
As President George W. Bush is hell-bent in waging war against Iraq, not only will the lives of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) be at stake but those of their families and loved ones back home, added Ranka Manis, who was a nurse for eight years in Saudi Arabia before transferring to New York during the Gulf War.
As Iraq braces for an expected attack from the United States, many OFWs appear defiant while quietly fretting that yet another in a long series of cataclysms is about to befall them.
Pres. Bush has insisted that America wants only regime change, meaning the ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and that a free and democratic Iraq is the ultimate goal. The United States had no quarrel with the Iraqi people, Bush told the United Nations last month. Theyve suffered too long enough in silent captivity.
But, the migrant Filipino workers and other Iraqis already face daily struggles, Ranka Manis said. Although I was in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, the hardship and horror were close at hand. Twelve years of United Nations sanctions, imposed after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, have crippled the economy, to the point where people depend on government handouts of staples like food, soap and cooking oil simply to survive, she noted.
The Kalipunan Migranteng Pilipino at Pamilya (KMPP), a Middle East-based organization of Filipino migrants and their families, and an affiliate of Migrante International also acknowledged, to one degree or another, that all ordinary people in the region are already uncomfortably familiar with the horror of war.
The migrant families alliance cited reports saying that during the Gulf War, two laser-guided bombs from a U.S. jet destroyed an air-raid shelter, killing about 400 civilians. UN allied forces expressed regrets about the deaths. It was tragic, said KMPP chairperson Samuel Santiago. Do the Americans really know about the sufferings of war. Is there a difference between an Iraqi child and an American child?
Santiago said the KMPP and Migrante International are also well aware that U.S. war with Iraq could well touch directly the migrant workers as well as ordinary Iraqi people. Our loved ones there are faced with the grave threat of losing their jobs and their lives.
Meanwhile, reports abound that Saddam is not admired by all Iraqi people. On the outside people smile, people clap about how wonderful he is and what he has achieved. But behind our faces people laugh at it all, said one Iraqi to a newspaper reporter.
I think Saddam Hussein is seen only as a ruler strong enough to stand up to the United States, Ranka Manis said her cousin said.
Indeed, there is a widespread report indicating that the Bush administrations confrontation with Saddam is not about eliminating weapons of mass destruction or the threat of terrorism but about securing Iraqs oil reserves.
Its all about oil. America wants Iraqs oil, said International A.N.S.W.E.R coalition, an anti-war organization based in New York.
That is a view shared by Iraqis and migrant workers in the Middle East who otherwise have no love for Saddam. Saddam has something that America wants, Ranka Manis said.
In many ways, however, both Saddam and Bush already appear to be on war footing. That prospect worries the world.