MANILA, Philippines — About 177,000 overseas Filipinos in distress are still waiting to return home, even after the government repatriated more than 153,000 Filipinos in the last six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We expect to bring home 177,000 more OFWs (overseas Filipino workers),” Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said last week.
Among those waiting for months to return home are Filipino seafarers abandoned in their ships off China.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said a total of 153,124 Filipinos have been brought home since the first repatriation in February from Wuhan, China, where the first reported COVID-19 outbreak took place in January.
These included 57,595 Filipino seafarers who lost their jobs after most cruise and cargo operations stopped.
—Dona Z. Pazzibugan