House to augment repatriation funds

The House of Representatives is ready to augment funds for the repatriation of more than 100,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who remain stranded abroad, a House leader said on Friday.

Anakalusugan Rep. Michael Defensor, chair of the public accounts panel, said the amount could be incorporated in the planned “Bayanihan to Recover as One Act,” the sequel to Republic Act No. 11469, which allowed President Rodrigo Duterte to realign items in the budget for the coronavirus response.

“We have to get all of our workers, who have been rendered jobless by the COVID-19 pandemic, home to be with their loved ones,” Defensor said in a statement.

“We can appropriate in Bayanihan 2 additional funds for their repatriation and reintegration once they are here,” he added.

During the committee’s second meeting last week, Foreign Undersecretary Sarah Arriola informed the panel that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) had used up about P770 million of its P1-billion fund for assistance to nationals for the return of stranded OFWs.

The remaining P230 million shall be exhausted by next month, as one charter flight costs between P12 million and P13 million, the official said.

Arriola added that Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. was planning to divert his department’s P1-billion fund for the retrofitting of buildings to its repatriation fund.

Some 107,000 OFWs were still to be repatriated, the official said.

“The DFA has promised to fly in an additional 50,000 OFWs this month, while other agencies, including the Department of Labor and Employment and the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration, are prepared to receive, process and help them, give them aid and get them to their families,” Defensor said.

Those awaiting repatriation include about 5,000 in the United Arab Emirates and another 5,000 in Qatar who have already bought tickets on commercial flights, he added.