FACING budgetary constraints that is expected to get worse because of a much lower allocation next year, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is scraping the bottom of the barrel to fund the repatriation of a Filipino worker in Saudi Arabia who has served his sentence.

The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh has asked the DFA for release of funds to work for the repatriation of Jose Jonathan Botor Bigas, who was imprisoned for a drug-related offense in Saudi Arabia.

In its report to the DFA, the embassy said Bigas was sentenced to one- year imprisonment and 250 slashes in August 2007.

Bigas has remained behind bars at the Dammam Reformatory Jail even after finishing his term in August last year, since no funds have been released for his repatriation.

“The embassy [in Riyadh] has requested the Department of Foreign Affairs to disburse funds for Bigas’s repatriation for humanitarian considerations,” said a DFA statement on Tuesday.

Saudi hosts the biggest number of Filipino workers abroad, with 1.2 million of the total of 2 million Filipino workers in Middle East countries.

The DFA is seeking a P19-billion budget for 2010 to effectively serve 8 million Filipino workers abroad, especially those facing problems in Arab countries. But the Department of Budget and Management only gave it P12.394 billion, which is lower than the current P12.543-billion budget.

Documented Filipino workers can be repatriated using funds from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration under the labor department, but undocumented workers mostly victims of trafficking are being handled by the DFA using assistance to nationals funds.

The DFA said higher budgetary allocation is very much needed to fund the salaries of diplomats and personnel in the new embassies in Damascus, Dublin, Warsaw, Helsinki and Lisbon, as well as the permanent mission in the Association of Southeast Nations secretariat in Jakarta. Three new consulates were also opened in Macau, Chongqing and Frankfurt, as well as five regional consular offices in the Philippines.

More funds are also needed to fund the repatriation of undocumented Filipino workers, as well as hiring lawyers for those facing criminal charges abroad.