FILE –Repatriated OFWs arrive at the NAIA Terminal 2 to board their flights. INQUIRER/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED) are set to give a P30,000 one-time assistance to college-level children of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is after the two government agencies forged an agreement on Friday, where a P1 billion scholarship fund will be rolled out by the government this year.
The program, dubbed as “Tabang OFW,” will benefit qualified 30,000 college students of repatriated, displaced, and deceased overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), according to DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
Under the agreement, the DOLE shall issue “orders, circulars or guidelines that will spell out the effective and efficient implementation of the program, including the appropriate utilization of funds, adherence to the usual government accounting and auditing rules, and submission of reports.”
CHED, meanwhile, will be the one to release the P1 billion fund to DOLE for the implementation of the educational assistance program.
As for CHED’s Unified Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST), it will be assisting DOLE on the promotion and other information dissemination activities of the program, as well as jointly work in crafting the guidelines, coverage, and criteria in availing the subsidy under the program.
“We hope this will go a long way in helping our OFWs and their children in these most challenging times. By doing this, we also hope we can partly repay our modern-day heroes,” Bello said.
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) previously said that 220,000 repatriated OFWs have been sent back to their hometowns.