Filipino migrant Carol holds her 3-month-old baby Caisha as they spend Friday night at an area of Tel Aviv’s central bus station turned into an evacuation site. In the port city of Haifa, some 90 kilometers north of Tel Aviv, emergency personnel inspect a damaged building and its surroundings also on Friday, exactly a week into the conflict with Iran triggered by Israel’s air strike on June 13. An estimated 30,000 Filipinos work in Israel, as opposed to about 1,180 Filipinos in Iran, most of them married to Iranian citizens. On Friday, the Department of Foreign Affairs raised over Israel the third of its four alert levels, notifying Filipinos there that they could avail themselves of voluntary repatriation. But according to the government’s latest update on Saturday, only about 190 Filipinos have chosen to be repatriated, with 26 of them expected to arrive home this weekend. —REUTERS, AP
CONTRABAND RETRIEVED FROM THE SEA
Members of the Philippine Navy behold an estimated 1.5 tons of suspected “shabu” (crystal meth) valued at P10 billion, which they seized on Friday morning from a fishing boat off the coast of Zambales province. Also that day, fisherfolk found near the shores of Ballesteros, Cagayan, a floating pack of suspected shabu worth P10.2 million—and believed to be part of the drugs seized in Zambales. The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said the vessel apprehended there was manned by two Filipinos and a Chinese-Malaysian believed to be connected with the Sam Gor crime syndicate—the same drug cartel allegedly behind the packs of shabu found in the waters of Pangasinan, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur and other provinces. PDEA and other authorities have yet to shed light on these drug discoveries since late last month. —PDEA PHOTO
QUEER ENTERPRISE
Trans women running a booth at the 1st QueerCon held at Ayala Malls Trinoma have a laugh among themselves as they try out a beauty contest crown. Its organizers said the two-day QueerCon, which ended on Saturday, also served as the first business expo for the LGBTQ+ sector in the Asia-Pacific region. —LYN RILLON
