The takeover of Afghanistan would mean that for 61-year old accountant Joseph Glenn Gumpal his career ended in the country.
Working as finance director of Saladin Security Afghanistan Ltd, a British security agency and as a member of the company’s board of directors, Gumpal was among the lucky ones to escape from the country.
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Having worked for over three decades as an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Iraq, Nigeria and Qatar, Gumpal, who is president of the Samahang Pinoy in Afghanistan, said that after the recent Taliban takeover he and the other Filipinos in Afghanistan decided that the best choice left for them to remain safe was to repatriate.
He and hundreds of other Filipinos had to leave their jobs, but unlike Gumpal who had started to save up and prepare for retirement, and whose four children had finished school, many of the OFWs in Afghanistan are still young.
He said that fear began to set in around April this year when U.S. President Joe Biden announced the complete withdrawal of American forces by September 11, 2021, following which member countries of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started pulling out their troops.
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In May news reached Gumpal’s office in Darya Hotel in the city of Kabul that the biggest US military bases stationed in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar had already withdrawn their forces while some of the troops in Bagram Base pulled out one evening in June.
In the morning of August 14 news reached Gumpal and his British coworkers that the Taliban had taken over the police station in district 7 and had already entered Kabul, he prepared to leave immediately after. (AW)
