A government-chartered aircraft carrying 343 Filipinos — 317 overseas Filipino workers and 26 dependents — touched down at Villamor Air Base early Monday morning, completing what authorities described as the first repatriation flight to consolidate workers from four Gulf nations onto a single aircraft.
Flight PR8502, organized by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, brought home workers from Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia under the government’s whole-of-government repatriation framework. OWWA Administrator Patricia Yvonne Caunan personally traveled to Riyadh ahead of the operation to oversee preparations on the ground.
Getting the group to a single departure point required coordinated land border crossings for those in countries with closed airspace. Workers from Bahrain and Kuwait were escorted overland to the Saudi capital, where they were met by teams from the Department of Migrant Workers, OWWA, and Philippine embassy personnel. A separate DMW-OWWA Rapid Response Team handled the movement of OFWs from Qatar to Riyadh in time for the scheduled departure.
The flight marked a logistical step up from the previous OWWA-organized charter on March 14, which had consolidated workers from three countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain. PR8502 added Qatar to the mix, making it the fourth government-chartered repatriation mission since formal operations began on March 5 and the second organized specifically by OWWA.
The operation is part of the Marcos administration’s directive to sustain continuous repatriation assistance for Filipinos caught in the regional conflict, which erupted after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28. OWWA coordinated document processing, visa arrangements, land and air transport, and temporary accommodation throughout the staging period in Riyadh.
With this flight’s arrival, the total number of OFWs and dependents returned to the Philippines under the whole-of-government effort has risen to at least 2,099, not counting this latest batch. The DMW has separately reported that approximately 12,000 OFWs across affected areas have received on-site assistance — including food, temporary shelter, and transport — since the conflict began. DMW Undersecretary Bernard Olalia has acknowledged that funding, while currently sufficient, may need to be augmented if the crisis continues to escalate.
