Financial grants from the AKSYON Fund have reached 80,000 overseas Filipino workers since the program was established under President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo J. Cacdac said in an interview on DWAN 1206 AM’s Señor Balita.
Payouts under the fund range from P50,000 to P100,000, calibrated to how severe a worker’s circumstances are. A 2024 department order set that scale, replacing a flat P30,000 grant that had applied to nearly all categories of distress.
Legal representation forms the second arm of the program, with about 14,000 workers assisted. Cacdac said the department keeps lawyers on retainer in 25 countries, ready to take up cases involving Filipino workers.
Medical claims account for a smaller share, covering more than 3,000 workers. Beyond that, the OFW Hospital has served roughly 80,000 patients drawn from migrant workers and their relatives, the secretary said.
Cacdac described the fund as central to the administration’s commitment to Filipinos working abroad, and said Marcos recently pushed its allocation to P3 billion. Migrant Workers Undersecretary Bernard Olalia told a Palace briefing in January that the 2026 General Appropriations Act carried P2 billion for AKSYON, up from P1.2 billion the year before — a level he described as the highest the fund has received. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported in June that Marcos ordered a separate P3 billion released for the department’s repatriation and reintegration work.
AKSYON stands for Agarang Kalinga at Saklolo para sa mga OFWs na Nangangailangan. It operates under Republic Act No. 11641, the law that created the Department of Migrant Workers in 2022.
