Almost 10,000 workers home from Middle East
The Philippines is set to surpass 10,000 repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as the government continued coordinated return and assistance operations for workers affected by job disruptions abroad, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said on Friday.
Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac said 9,696 Filipinos have already been repatriated through government-assisted flights, including chartered and commercial arrangements. Additional arrivals scheduled in the coming days are expected to push the total beyond the 10,000 mark.
The figures were announced following a joint DMW and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa), where officials said more than 300 Filipino workers were repatriated in a recent batch of special flights arranged with Kuwait Air on Friday.
Owwa Administrator Patricia Yvonne Caunan said a total of about 3,000 Filipinos in Kuwait have so far been repatriated as part of continuing government operations in coordination with the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Officials said repatriation remains ongoing, with some workers flown directly from Kuwait while others are still routed through Dammam, Saudi Arabia, due to limited commercial flight availability.
Assistance
Alongside return efforts, the government said 25,246 OFWs have received financial assistance of about $200 each under an ongoing aid program.
Of that total, 12,895 beneficiaries remain abroad but have been affected by job disruptions, including reduced working hours, lower take-home pay and fewer shifts.
The remaining 12,351 have already returned to the Philippines and received assistance either prior to departure or upon arrival.
During the Kuwait mission, Cacdac and Caunan also visited Filipino workers in a hospital in Kuwait City, where they met health professionals, including nurses and medical technologists.
They also visited a construction site south of Kuwait City near the Saudi border, where Filipino workers are employed in a coastal development project.
Workers raised a request for the revival of a “service caravan,” a mobile government outreach initiative that previously brought multiple agencies together to provide services directly to Filipinos abroad.
