Gov't repatriates more 100, 000 OFWs to their provinces

The Philippines Labor department reported on Sunday that the government repatriated more than 106,200 overseas Filipino workers and have been sent to their home provinces amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Photo credit: globalnation.inquirer.net

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration head Hans Cacdac said repatriated migrant workers wait for a mandatory swab test results for 3 to 5 days, which are sent to their emails, before they are transported home.

Several buses do rounds on 67 hotels to bring OFWs to their home provinces, he added.

Cacdac said in an interview that the undergoing process are smooth and the number of OFWs being repatriated in late May just accumulated. There are always day to day operational issues, however the process of getting OFWs home has been smooth.

The government has accommodated around 47,000 OFWs in Metro Manila hotels for their quarantine using P850 million of funds. Some P350 million were spent for transportation of the migrant workers, totaling the agency's expense so far at P1.2 billion, as of first week of July, Cacdac added.

The agency had to use portion of its trust fund from the OFWs' contributions prior to DBM's additional allocation of P5 billion that is good until 2014, according to Cacdac.

"Before ng tulong sa DBM, medyo nakita natin na kung magpatuloy ito hangggang katapusang ng taon, maaapektuhan ang pondo," [Before DBM's help, we saw this would greatly affect our funds.] he said of the agency's trust fund.

He added that for now OWWA is not in danger in terms of assets over liabilities. The agency has raised to the health department about cases of some 1 percent OFWs who tested positive for the coronavirus when they arrived in their home province.

He also said that they wanted to know the reasons why some OFW has tested positive. He hopes the contact tracing teams could study on the matter.

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, as of July 19, government has repatriated 90,497 Filipino migrant workers. The Philippines has, so far, reported 78,412 cases of the novel coronavirus, with 25,752 recoveries and 1,897 deaths.