THE number of repatriated overseas Filipinos (OF) surpassed the 100,000 mark over the weekend with the arrival of 12,022 OFs last Saturday from the Netherlands, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States, according to separate statements by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Labor and Employment.
The DFA said 102,519 have been brought home since February, of whom 43,893 are sea-based and 58,626 are land-based.
The DFA said it continues to bring home stranded OFs from anywhere in the world amid the challenges brought about by Covid-19-related lockdowns and travel restrictions, as most of the Filipinos lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
Last week, the DFA brought home a total of 8,895 OFs from the Middle East, 1,806 from the Asia-Pacific, 677 from Europe and 644 from the Americas. Of these repatriates, 1,400 were brought home from Malaysia, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
The DFA chartered four flights, paid for by the Assistance-to-Nationals Fund.
The DFA also facilitated the first repatriation flight from New Zealand since April and brought home 280 overseas Filipinos, many of whom were senior citizens. The DFA also repatriated 111 Filipino seafarers from Fujian, China. The stranded Filipinos came from nine different Chinese fishing vessels that were forced to anchor in the high seas for several months due to Covid-19 restrictions imposed by countries around the world.
In a statement on Sunday, the DOLE reported a slightly different number from DFA. It registered 106,200 repatriated OFWs who sought government aid to be transported back to their home provinces.
Of the said OFWs, 2,246 were sent home by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) on Saturday after they tested negative for Covid-19.
DOLE earlier said at least 400,000 OFWs worldwide displaced or suffered reduced work hours because of Covid-19.
Of these, about 190,000 still refused to go home as they opted to look for other employment opportunities in their host countries.
Other fund sources
The sheer number of Covid-affected OFWs has placed considerable strain on the government’s assistance programs for them.
DOLE is once again running out of funds for its Abot Kamay ang Pagtulong (AKAP) program, which provides a one-time cash aid of P10,000 or $200 to Covid-affected OFWs.
Citing data from OWWA, it said 254,846 AKAP applications had been approved, with 214,619 OFWs having received the emergency aid.
Currently, DOLE only has a P2.5 billion budget for AKAP—just enough for 250,000 beneficiaries. This includes the original P1.5 billion budget for AKAP and the P1 billion later released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the second tranche of the program.
It requested an additional P2.5 billion funding for the supposed third tranche of AKAP, but as of last week DBM was still evaluating the request.
In a phone interview last week, OWWA administrator Hans Cacdac told BusinessMirror they are now considering using P1 billion of the P5-billion funds earlier approved by DBM to be used in their OFWs assistance initiatives.
“This fund will be separate [from that of AKAP]. It will provide assistance for those who will not be covered by AKAP,” Cacdac clarified.
Improving deployment
The local community quarantine measures and travel restrictions imposed by the other countries due to Covid-19 severely reduced the deployment of OFWs from January to May.
Preliminary data of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said the deployment of OFWs for the first five months dipped by 47.10 percent to 460,264 from 870,015 in the same period in 2019.
However, recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani said this has improved this month with the gradual increase in the deployment of seafarers abroad.
He said these include Filipino seafarers who went to Germany and Rome last week for the scheduled resumption of the cruise ships operation next month.
POEA administrator Bernard Olalia confirmed the slight improvement in the deployment figures this month.
“This is due to the IATF [Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases] joint circular for the establishment of a green lane [for] crew change,” Olalia told BusinessMirror in a SMS.
The green lane was implemented by concerned government agencies this month to facilitate the safe and swift disembarkation and crew changer of seafarers in the country.
Recto L. Mercene, Samuel P. Medenilla