MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs on Monday night brought home 139 Filipinos from Myanmar, where protests against the military are still ongoing, over two weeks after it detained de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and seized control of the country.
DFA in a statement said Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. was at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 to welcome the repatriates himself.
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Among those aboard Monday's chartered flight, the agency said, were 11 dependent children and four dependent parents, two of whom are senior citizens, "who worked as professionals in Myanmar and whose contracts were seriously affected by the COVID-19 restrictions in the country."
The department said it has brought home a total of 509 overseas Filipinos from Myanmar since March 2020 through a total of 14 flights. Monday's flight was the second DFA-chartered flight from Yangon, the agency said, while another 12 flights were facilitated by officials in collaboration with airline companies.
Myanmar under 'near-total internet shutdown'
Authorities in Myanmar imposed a "near-total internet shutdown" for the second night in a row, a UK-based monitoring group said early Tuesday.
"#Myanmar is in the midst of a near-total internet shutdown for a second consecutive night" as of 1 am local time (1830 GMT), according to a tweet from NetBlocks, a group monitoring internet outages around the world.
The internet blackout early Monday morning lasted eight hours.
The United Nations on Monday denounced Myanmar's military rulers for choking off the internet amid a crackdown on anti-coup protests.
The UN envoy for Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener spoke with the deputy commander of the Myanmar army, Soe Win, and warned that "network blackouts undermine core democratic principles," UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
The envoy noted that such shutdowns "hurt key sectors, including banking, and heighten domestic tensions. And, so, we've made our concerns about this very clear," said Haq. — Bella Perez-Rubio with AFP