Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III announced on Thursday the approval of P500 million in emergency financial assistance to the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) laid off in Saudi Arabia.
The emergency financial assistance to be given from the contingency fund of Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) will be given to OFWs stranded in Saudi Arabia after they lost their jobs there, and to those who have already been repatriated.
Nine financially distressed companies in Saudi Arabia, including the Al Mojil Group (MMG), Saudi Bin Laden Group and the Saudi Oger, laid off thousands of OFWs, leaving many of them stranded in that country.
The said companies, which suffered financial reverses, were unable to fulfill their contractual obligations, causing delay or non-payment of salaries, end-of-service payments and other benefits to their employees.
“The cash relief assistance will consist of P20,000 per affected worker, and another P6,000 cash assistance per family,” Bello said in a news statement.
The grant of emergency financial assistance was approved by the OWWA Board in its Board Resolution 6, after the recommendation of an interagency special mission to Saudi Arabia in March, which saw the serious need to immediately respond to the needs of the laid-off OFWs in Saudi Arabia.
President Duterte, upon his assumption to office, had also asked the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to repatriate the OFWs who wish to go back home after being laid off from their work in Saudi Arabia.
“Now, I will just ask them to come home because of the business reverses there, and those are the imponderables of life. When it’s good it pours, but when it’s bad, it’s really a red thing. I will repatriate them because they’re not getting paid and they’re just being swindled there,” Mr. Duterte said.
“Which is why I sent somebody there so they can be brought home immediately. If there is nobody to pay for them, bring them home. There are some who take their passports away and withhold it from them, so I told Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay to go there and give them travel documents and talk to these people who are doing this,” he added.