Overseas Filipino worker Joseph Glenn Gumpal recalled tense moments as he traveled out from Afghanistan after the Taliban overran Kabul.
Gumpal, president of Samahang Pilipino sa Afghanistan – the Filipino expatriate community in Afghanistan – worked for about 11 years there and he did not foresee his employment for a British security company would abruptly end.
He was evacuated aboard a military aircraft taking off from Kabul after the Philippine embassy in Pakistan sent him a message that the repatriation flight for Filipinos has already arrived at the Kabul airport and they have to be there within 45 minutes.
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After declaring an Alert Level 4, the Philippine government mobilized a mandatory evacuation and repatriation of Filipinos in Afghanistan. The Philippine embassy in Islamabad, which has jurisdiction over Afghanistan, has already evacuated 158 Filipino nationals while an estimated 49 Filipinos are still stranded there.
Gumpal said he hurried to the airport but was stopped by the British troops and was not allowed to go out. “I begged that I have to catch my flight,” Gumpal recounted.
He said he was warned he could be shot by the Taliban if he insisted on going on his own because there were lots of them along the way to the airport.
The British troops offered the Filipino worker to join their evacuation procedures and he recalled that tension was palpable when they arrived at the airport since Taliban fighters and western troops securing the facility’s perimeter were at a shooting distance.
While the Taliban were at the outside perimeter, the second row of the guard line was of British forces and the Turkish contingent.
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Aboard a military cargo aircraft with more than 100 passengers they were slumped on the floor of the aircraft during the flight and just holding on to ropes.
At Al-Maktoum International Airport, Gumpal was not allowed to leave the airport, and instead was transferred with other passengers to a waiting chartered Wamo Air passenger plane destined for Manchester in the UK.
The Philippine government embassy staff in the UK coordinated with him since he arrived on August 20 and he is now pleading to facilitate his return to the Philippines and to shorten his 10-day quarantine so he could catch the commercial flight to Manila on August 24. “Right now, I just want to be with my family,” he said.
Safe from the chaos in Afghanistan, Gumpal however remains concerned about the Filipinos stranded there. (AW)
