BEIRUT -- The Philippines has built one of Asia's most comprehensive systems for protecting migrant workers. Yet as conflict heightened security risks in Lebanon this year, some Filipinos chose not to return home, fearing the same protections could prevent them from returning to their jobs abroad.

Vrigilda "Gigi" Purificacion, 51, arrived in Lebanon more than two decades ago. Family responsibilities and a lack of job opportunities back home in Luzon, Philippines, prompted her to look for work abroad. Little did she know that her job in Beirut would become a one-way ticket. For nine years, she has watched her granddaughter back home grow up via a mobile screen, missing what she calls her best years.

"I saw her when she was months old. Now she is nine. She misses me. I even lost my mother. It was a very difficult time for me," Gigi says.

Every Sunday, Gigi joins hundreds of other migrant workers from across Asia at a cricket ground in Beirut where they eat and spend their day off together. Other Filipino workers there echoed her experience.

Some have not been home for eight or nine years. Others have gone three years or more without visiting their families. For some, the prospect of leaving Lebanon means risking their ability to return to the jobs that support their families.

The last time Gigi tried to return to Lebanon after visiting the Philippines, she says she was stopped at the airport five times because she did not have the required overseas employment documents. Eventually, her employer paid an agency at least $8,000 to arrange her return. "We have no choice," she said. "We can go, but we cannot return." Her experience sits uneasily alongside a system designed precisely to protect workers like her.

The Philippines has positioned itself as a regional leader in protecting migrant and domestic workers. With more than 10.7 million Filipinos living overseas, including nearly 5.7 million temporary migrants, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the country plays a major role in global labor migration.

The Philippines has positioned itself as a regional leader in protecting migrant and domestic workers. With more than 10.7 million Filipinos living overseas, including nearly 5.7 million temporary migrants, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the country plays a major role in global labor migration.

It was the first country to ratify ILO Convention No. 189, which sets international standards for decent work for domestic workers, and the first in Southeast Asia to ratify Convention No. 190, which seeks to prevent and address violence and harassment at work. The Philippine government has also strengthened its migration framework through the Department of Migrant Workers Act, with measures aimed at preventing trafficking, exploitation and abusive recruitment. Yet the system takes on a different dimension in Lebanon.

As regional tensions and security risks rose in the wake of the Israel-Iran conflict and U.S. strikes earlier this year, the Philippines classified Lebanon under Crisis Alert Level 3, encouraging workers to return home and restricting deployment to the country. The policy is intended to keep Filipinos out of harm's way. But for workers who have spent years building livelihoods in Lebanon, it has also created a painful dilemma: remain in a country their government considers dangerous, or go home and risk not being able to come back. The dilemma came into sharper focus during the latest regional crisis, when Philippine authorities encouraged citizens to leave Lebanon.

Froilan T. Malit, Jr., a Gulf-Asia migration specialist, explains that the restrictions are intended as a protective measure.

"Filipino domestic workers are not allowed to legally travel from Manila to Beirut," says Malit, describing cases in which recruitment agencies have instead routed workers through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates. Yet more than 11,000 Filipinos, as per 2024 data, already work in Lebanon, creating a contradiction between the government's efforts to protect its workers and the reality of those who have built their livelihoods there.

"Filipino domestic workers are not allowed to legally travel from Manila to Beirut," says Malit, describing cases in which recruitment agencies have instead routed workers through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates. Yet more than 11,000 Filipinos, as per 2024 data, already work in Lebanon, creating a contradiction between the government's efforts to protect its workers and the reality of those who have built their livelihoods there. At the heart of the policy is the tension between a worker's freedom to migrate and the state's responsibility to protect them from exploitation.

But from the government's perspective restrictions are also justified when recruitment itself involves deception or exploitation.

"Migration is a freedom," says Malit. "At the same time, the state tries to control it. If there is a deception in the recruitment process, then that's not considered a human right." For workers already in Lebanon, however, these protective measures can affect their ability to leave and return to their jobs. What is intended to protect them can, in practice, become a constraint on their basic freedom to move and return home, a prospect that some workers perceive as too risky to contemplate.

"Migration is a freedom," says Malit. "At the same time, the state tries to control it. If there is a deception in the recruitment process, then that's not considered a human right." For workers already in Lebanon, however, these protective measures can affect their ability to leave and return to their jobs. What is intended to protect them can, in practice, become a constraint on their basic freedom to move and return home, a prospect that some workers perceive as too risky to contemplate.

"We are free to go, but we cannot come back. You have to choose: 'Okay, I can go, but what am I going to do over there?' I have no work. And I still have my house to finish," says Gigi, referring to the house she is helping to build in the Philippines with the income she earns in Beirut. Remittances are an important pillar of the Philippine economy. Cash remittances through banks reached a record $35.63 billion in 2025.

At the same time, the government also regulates overseas employment to protect its workers abroad. The Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC) that has now been integrated into the digital Overseas Filipino Worker Pass, serves as proof that a worker is properly documented and cleared to leave the Philippines for an overseas job. Workers returning to the same employer and jobsite can qualify for an exemption, while those changing employers or returning to restricted destinations can face additional requirements.

At the same time, the government also regulates overseas employment to protect its workers abroad. The Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC) that has now been integrated into the digital Overseas Filipino Worker Pass, serves as proof that a worker is properly documented and cleared to leave the Philippines for an overseas job. Workers returning to the same employer and jobsite can qualify for an exemption, while those changing employers or returning to restricted destinations can face additional requirements.

Activists and relatives of Lebanon-based Filipino workers demand assistance and repatriation outside the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs in Pasay, Metro Manila, in 2024, as fighting escalated between Hezbollah and Israeli forces. The conflict exposed a dilemma facing some migrant workers, who fear that leaving Lebanon to visit the Philippines could make it harder to return to jobs that support their families. Lebanon, however, is a complicated case.

Iris Agario, who is 45 and from Mindanao in Philippines, came to Lebanon about 20 years ago and has been home only two or three times since. As the sole earner in her family, she worries that if she goes to visit the Philippines, she may not be able to return to her job.

"There is nothing in Mindanao. No work, no job," she says. "I earn $600 [a month] here, and my employers are good. So, it's my choice to stay here." When told that the difficulty of returning is linked to the Philippines' restrictions on deployment to Lebanon, Agario said she was unaware of the ban and that the embassy rarely gives clear answers to workers' questions.

"Because if we ask someone, [we get] a different answer. If you ask someone [else], [you get] a different answer. There is never one [answer]. As long as I'm OK with my employer, it's OK," Agario says.

The government is not indifferent to the workers. It has offered repatriation assistance, maintained consular services and urged Filipinos to leave during periods of heightened danger.

But a worker who has spent decades building a job and community in Lebanon may see repatriation differently from the government. And returning can mean confronting a bureaucratic system that the worker is not sure they can navigate.

For people like Gigi, her Sunday community has become a semblance of the family she left behind years ago, watching them grow from a distance.

"We count days, you know. Tomorrow, when we go to work, we will start counting days to Sunday. It's better to stay here, sit under the tree with friends, than going anywhere and spending money." Kanika Gupta is a contributing writer.