Roughly 35,000 overseas Filipino workers affected by the Middle East crisis have been handed direct financial assistance, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said during the June 7 OFW Summit in Quezon City, where officials detailed the government’s response to Filipinos caught in the region’s turmoil.
Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo J. Cacdac cast the payouts as a standing commitment rather than a single round of relief. “We are continuously giving $200 to the workers affected, those whose shifts had been cut, those who were asked to take a break — we have ongoing efforts for financial assistance,” he said in Filipino at the summit.
The cash aid sat within a broader package of support. About 70,000 OFWs have drawn help through the government’s AKSYON Fund, while some 14,000 overseas Filipinos have received free legal assistance, according to Cacdac.
On the repatriation front, more than 10,000 OFWs from the Middle East have been brought home by the agency. Cacdac described the operation as a joint undertaking with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, with returnees moved through a mix of chartered flights and government-funded plane tickets.
Cacdac offered a cautiously upbeat read on conditions across the region, saying the situation had been improving. He tempered that, however, by pointing to the economic aftershocks of the US-Israel and Iran war, which he said could prove slow and difficult to shake off.
The summit drew about 1,400 participants and was held to mark National Migrant Workers’ Day, DMW Director IV Francisco S. Aguilar, Jr. said.
