The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration reiterated on Thursday its call to recruitment agencies to abide by the government's ban on deployment of workers to Iraq.

The deputy administrator May Dimzon said those found violating the ban would have their licenses revoked.

"That's the automatic penalty. The ban is very clear. Do not put our countrymen in harm's way. What explanation can they give if they were found to have done so," she said.

The administration has clarified that Filipino accountant Roberto Tarongoy kidnapped together with an American, a Nepalese and an Iraqi late Monday in Baghdad went to Iraq on his own, through Qatar.

The Philippine government banned all worker deployments to Iraqin July shortly after truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was kidnappedby Iraqi militants who demanded the withdrawal of Philippine 51-man humanitarian contingent there.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has given the instructions "to exhaust all means and to never give up until our nationals are brought back home," Philippine Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Thursday in a statement.

On Wednesday, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said he had instructed the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad to take all appropriate measures to ascertain the condition of the Filipino and gather additional information on the situation, the abductors and their possible demands.

Roy Cimatu, chairman of the Presidential Middle East Preparedness Committee and Head of Philippine Team Iraq had been instructed to go to Baghdad from Kuwait to assist the new hostage crisis after Angelito Nayan abduction case in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Philippine Labor Secretary Patricia Thomas said the government is mulling to evacuate some 5,000 overseas Filipino workers from war-torn Iraq if the security situation in the Middle Eastern country deteriorates further.

Source: Xinhua