Presa, who was working as a private contractor in Afghanistan, was flown to Qatar on Tuesday MANILA: Before he boarded a US military plane for Qatar with other evacuees on Tuesday, Elmer Presa gave all to ensure his coworkers and compatriots had a safe passage from Afghanistan after the Taliban’s lightning offensive two days earlier. Presa, a Filipino national working as a private contractor in Afghanistan for almost a decade, was among hundreds of foreigners who began to flee the country after the Taliban took control of the capital, Kabul, last week. On Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said an estimated 49 Filipinos remained in Afghanistan, with 42 requesting to be repatriated while 158 overseas Filipino workers, out of nearly 200, had already been evacuated. In an interview with Arab News on Thursday evening, Presa said he was willing to return to Kabul to help bring the rest of his compatriots home. “We still have friends and kababayans (compatriots) in Afghanistan waiting to be rescued,” Presa said. “I’m volunteering myself if our government would like to use me for a mission. I’m very much willing to offer my services to do the repatriation for our fellow Filipinos.” Foreign affairs assistant secretary, Eduardo Meñez, told Arab News on Friday that Filipinos who have left Afghanistan and are now in Qatar or the UK will be “contacted and assisted in their return,” adding that they would have to look into Presa’s proposal. Presa’s efforts to evacuate people at security services company Hart Integrated Solutions began on Monday morning when it was already clear the Taliban had taken Kabul. While most of his colleagues were scrambling to leave, Presa said some were on duty at various foreign embassies and a hotel. “I asked permission from our transport manager that I need a vehicle because no one is getting my guys,” Presa said. “I told my boss, I’ll take the risk for this, even bet my life. It’s alright. No problem for me; I just need to get my guys back here.” The colleagues he needed to evacuate — three Filipinos and one Sri Lankan — were trapped at the US and Swedish embassies and the Baron Hotel. Presa said he had asked permission from Taliban fighters who had taken hold of the diplomatic area. “I just made a gesture to the Taliban that I need to go there to pick up my guy. One of our dog handlers, Christian, from Zamboanga, assisted me, and we were able to retrieve Jeffrey.” As he moved his colleague to their base near the airport, another called Presa. “He said there’s no one to retrieve him,” Presa said. “Again, I asked permission from my boss that I need to get one of our guys at the US Embassy. “By that time, it was already a bit dark, and I was astonished because there were lots of Taliban securing the area and outside the US Embassy.” This time, he said, they were stopped, and the Taliban asked a lot of questions. “So I talked to the one in charge, and I told him, in their language, ‘commandant, we still have one Filipino guy there, I just need to get him; after that, we’ll go straight to our office.’ He said, ‘Ok, yeah, go ahead.’” Two other colleagues were assisted the next day and evacuated from the Baron Hotel. All of them boarded military flights on Tuesday that brought Presa, along with several colleagues, to the US military air base in Qatar. Others were flown to the UK. “Outside, there’s really pandemonium,” he said. “I feel sad seeing people from Afghanistan rushing to get a flight, to escape from their own country.” Grace Gallora, who works as Hart’s deputy regional human resource manager, told Arab News: “Elmer informed me that we have colleagues stranded at the embassies. By that time, nobody wanted to go back. So it was only him who took the courage to get our coworkers back. “They are all in the UK now because they were on a Royal Air Force flight that evacuated people from Afghanistan. Elmer and I are the only ones here in Doha. We were separated from the team because we were the last to leave Kabul. I had to account for all our employees because I was the only human resource personnel left to do the task,” Gallora said. Presa, on the other hand, was also among the last to leave because he wanted to make sure that “everyone in the team was safe.” As of Saturday, Gallora said they were still waiting to be flown to Kuwait. From there, they will take a commercial flight back to the Philippines.