2 million reasons for withdrawing 51 troops

American officials, several of their allies and many U.S. media criticized Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's decision to recall her nation's small military contingent in Iraq in order to save the life of Filipino hostage Angelo dela Cruz. They called the move cowardly and said it sent terrorists "the wrong signal."

For most of dela Cruz's compatriots, however, and from the standpoint of their national interest, it was a sensible, even courageous move. There was more at stake in Arroyo's decision to pull out of Iraq than saving the life of an unfortunate hostage or avoiding the ire of the U.S. government, a key source of foreign aid for the Philippines. The hostage crisis imperiled a crucial survival mechanism for the impoverished nation -- the gainful employment of millions of overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East. Some 2 million Filipinos work in the region, with nearly a million in Saudi Arabia alone, according to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.

These large contingents of Filipino workers have become a critical prop of the Philippine economy. They represent the millions who can't find work in their own country. They send home some $8 billion a year (remittances were largely responsible for a 4.5 percent GNP growth in 2002), providing otherwise income-strapped families the spending power that keeps the economy afloat. A number of Filipinos have been among the unintended victims of suicide bombings in Israel, and a number were killed in recent attacks on foreigners working for American firms in Saudi Arabia.

For Arroyo to insist on remaining in the so-called "coalition of the willing," despite the terrorists' threats, would have exposed all Filipinos in the region to a dramatically higher level of danger -- where they are transformed into deliberate targets of terror because their government persists in giving political cover to Bush's "coalition" by keeping a symbolic military contingent in Iraq.

In such an eventuality, the mass return of millions of Filipino workers evading terrorist attacks in the Middle East would mean disaster for the Philippine economy. The Philippine government is simply not prepared to absorb a sudden influx of jobless returnees. The large-scale repatriation of Filipinos from the Middle East also would mean trouble for many Arab countries -- including some of America's allies -- that have come to depend on imported Filipino labor or expertise for a multitude of tasks, from domestic work to construction and management. There can be no doubt that President Arroyo's decision to pull out of Iraq to protect other Filipinos was quietly encouraged by many an Arab host government.

Clearly, Arroyo's decision was also politically self-serving, given the popular outcry for dela Cruz's safe return. Overseas Filipino workers -- an estimated 8 million labor in 150 countries -- risk their lives and endure long absences from their families. They're often called modern-day heroes by Filipino officials and media alike. In 1995, President Fidel Ramos' popularity plunged when he failed to save the life of Flor Contemplacion, a domestic worker who was hanged by the government of Singapore on a questionable murder conviction. Dela Cruz's kidnapping brought back memories of that execution, and the political danger was not lost on Arroyo. She had just assumed office after a bitter election whose credibility is held in doubt. Failure to bring back dela Cruz alive would have given her enemies effective ammunition in a poisonous political climate rife with talk of destabilization plots.

For most Filipino opinion-makers -- and from the standpoint of the Philippines' national interest -- pulling out of Iraq was not a "wrong signal" to terrorists. The wrong signal was to send a troop contingent to begin with, which only served to militarize the longstanding and purely civilian Filipino presence in the Middle East and made it a likely target of terrorist attacks.

As for Washington's implied threat of leaving the Philippines at the mercy of its homegrown terrorists, it's empty and face-saving. The Philippines remains the most important staging area for U.S. operations against al Qaeda's affiliates in Southeast Asia, as predominantly Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia are less than ideal hosts. In fact, several U.S. military exercises are set to take place in Southern Philippines. Like it or not, Washington is stuck with Manila, and Manila knows it.

Rene P. Ciria-Cruz is an editor at Pacific News Service and Filipinas Magazine.

This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle