An official from Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) said all returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), documented or not, would be given free swab tests, hotel quarantine, and transportation to go home.
OWWA head Hans Leo J. Cacdac clarified the confusion of stranded OFWs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) about whether they would avail of the free COVID-19 test and accommodation if they return to the Philippines.
“Returning OFWs po are free sa swab testing po upon arrival sa airports,” Cacdac told GMA News Online in a Viber Messenger interview from Dubai.
“(A)ng tanong po ba ay kung libre ang swab testing, hotel quarantine at transportation to home regions ng mga umuuwing OFWs, whether documented or undocumented? Yes po,” he added.
An official of the Department of Foreign Affairs earlier announced that another 47,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) stranded in the Middle East due to the COVID-19 pandemic need to be repatriated.
“As of now, we’re still looking at around 47,000 Filipinos stuck in the Middle East. We’re just waiting for our SARO actually (Special Allotment Release Order),” said DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola at the Senate hearing on the requested P21.96 billion budget of DFA 2021.
All returning OFWs, documented or not, can avail of free swab test, quarantine
On the other hand, Arriola thanked the Congress for the passage of Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, which allocated P820 million to the DFA to help OFWs.
“Once we get our SARO, we will resume our flights because we’ve been chartering already a lot of flights. We’ve already chartered 57 flights using our original Assistance to Nationals (ATN) fund,” the official explained.
Arriola added that they also need to adjust the expenses demanded by the employers of some stranded OFWs.
“Some of the employers would ask us for the deployment costs, which as of now we’re also doing but quietly. If we don’t do that, we won’t be able to bring them home,” she said.
Due to the crisis created by COVID-19, Arriola said that more and more Filipinos in the Middle East are losing their jobs and becoming undocumented.