The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration is pressing both Congress and the Department of Budget and Management for an additional P12 billion after spending half of its emergency repatriation allocation since conflict erupted across the Middle East.
Deputy Administrator for Administration and Fund Management Jasmine Gapatan spelled out the breakdown at a Monday press conference: nine billion pesos earmarked for emergency repatriation operations and three billion directed at reintegration support for returning workers.
“We could do so much more if we had more. That is why we requested from the DBM and our Congress and Senate a supplementary budget of P12B, composed of nine billion pesos as an additional emergency repatriation fund… the three billion pesos focused on the reintegration program,” Gapatan said.
OWWA Administrator Patricia Yvonne Caunan, who also spoke at the briefing, tied the supplementary request directly to the pace at which funds have been drawn down.
“We have utilized 50 percent of the allocated repatriation fund… That is why we are asking for an additional budget from the DBM for two things: emergency repatriation fund and the equally important reintegration,” Caunan said.
The agency’s repatriation expenditures cover document processing for departing overseas Filipino workers and their dependents, along with flight bookings — chartered or commercial — back to the Philippines. Reintegration services, meanwhile, extend to medical, financial, and transport assistance, alongside upskilling, reskilling, and job placement support for those who have returned.
OWWA and the Department of Migrant Workers activated repatriation operations in early March, following U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliatory missile attacks on American military installations in the region.
The three-billion-peso reintegration component of the request signals that the government anticipates a sustained wave of returnees requiring long-term assistance well beyond the initial flight home.
