Ambassador Mariano A. Dumia, who was recently appointed Charge d'Affaires at the Philippine Embassy in Iran pending his formal designation as chief of mission, has warned Filipinos against illegally entering Iran via the Iranian island of Kish from the United Arab Emirates to work as housemaids or act as mules in the drug trade. Speaking to Saudi Gazette by phone, Dumia said Filipinos in the UAE with tourist visas are entering Iran through the island of Kish as a transit point to find employment in Iran, mostly as domestic workers. He said some drug syndicates are also using Filipinos as mules. He said other overseas Filipino workers from other Gulf countries are transiting via the island of Kish to enter Iran. Kish, a resort island in the Arabian Gulf and part of the Hormozgan Province of Iran, is a free-trade zone area with numerous malls, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and resort hotels. Foreign nationals, including Filipinos, wishing to enter Kish free zone areas from legal ports are not required to obtain prior visas. Valid travel permits are stamped for 14 days at the airport and Kish port. “At present there are seven Filipinos detained in various jails in Tehran on charges of being mules and carriers of drugs, and the embassy is trying its best to access them. The government of Iran considers drug-trafficking a major crime,” Dumia told Saudi Gazette. He said Iran does not accept foreign household service workers, and any foreign national working illegally in Iran will be fined $30 for each day of overstay in the country. Many Filipina housemaids enter Iran, mostly via the island of Kish from Dubai, with a tourist visa and holding on to the promise of the Iranian employers or recruiting agents that their working permit will be processed in Tehran. “Because the Iranian government does not allow foreign household service workers, they (Filipina housemaids) end up as illegal workers,” Dumia said. Early this year the Philippine Embassy in Tehran repatriated five household service workers who were illegally working in the country. The embassy has reiterated its advisory to concerned workers not to enter Iran to work illegally as household service workers. According to Dumia, there are approximately a thousand Filipinos in Iran, about 700 of them dependents and wives of Iranian nationals who studied at various universities in the Philippines. “After completing their education in Manila and other universities in the Philippines, these Iranian graduates of our universities took their Filipina wives to Tehran where they are now raising families,” Dumia said. He said the rest of the Filipinos in Tehran are professionals working as engineers and medical doctors. Dumia, who served as minister and deputy chief of mission at the Philippine embassy in Riyadh, is a specialist in Middle East affairs. He recently published a book entitled “Blood, Sweat, & Tears: The Modern Day Filipino Heroes in Saudi Arabia”, which chronicles the life of the 1.4 million Filipinos in the Kingdom and how Saudi Arabia has treated and hosted them.
