MANILA — A total of 7,880 overseas Filipinos (OFs), most of them affected by tough immigration policies in the Middle East, were repatriated between January and November this year, Malacañang said in a statement on Monday.
Based on the year-end report submitted by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., 57.67 percent of those sent home came from the Middle East. The biggest group was from Kuwait, composed of 942 OFs and distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were affected by the emirate’s crackdown on overstaying migrants.
There were also 70 OFs and OFWs from Sri Lanka who were impacted by political and economic turbulence in that country.
The government has defined OFs as those living or working outside the Philippines, including OFWs, whether based on land or at sea, and their families as well as undocumented/irregular migrants, victims of trafficking-in-person, permanent residents, dual citizens, exchange visitor program participants, and international students.
Aside from threats to the safety and welfare of OFWs, the pandemic has also led to the repatriation of many of them. An official of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration said in March that the government has so far repatriated around 1.7 million OFs since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This included 800,000 OFWs as of November 2021.
According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), most of the repatriates were pandemic-affected workers and displaced OFWs affected by lockdowns that were imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Data showed that among the recorded number of OFWs sent home, the highest for the previous years were between Nov. 15 and Dec. 12, 2020, at 56,925, and between Oct. 17 and Nov. 13, 2021, at 45,703.
Among those repatriated with the help of the DFA in 2021 were 22 trafficking and illegal recruitment victims in Syria following “lengthy diplomatic negotiations” with the Syrian government, as well as 191 Filipinos escaping from Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
A total of 250 distressed OFWs from Kuwait also returned home last year, this time with the DOLE’s assistance, after the government responded to their urgent calls for help. Eighty of them came from the Migrant Workers and Other Overseas Filipinos Resource Center while the rest were domestic and company workers.
Assistance assured
This year, the repatriation efforts were led by the DFA’s Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs, which had been absorbed by the newly created Department of Migrant Workers (DMW). The DFA, however, would continue to help other OFs not under the DMW’s jurisdiction.
Marcos earlier said that coordination between the DFA and the DMW would be further strengthened to provide assistance to OFs. In his official trips abroad, he had described OFWs as the country’s pride who “bring honor to the Filipino nation.”
He also recognized their contributions, especially during the time when the country’s economy was dampened by the pandemic.
During his meeting with Filipinos in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last month, the President said that OFWs’ remittances provided “a much-needed boost to the pandemic-stricken economy.”
Regarding the delivery of consular services, the DFA said that it issued a total of 3,589,620 passports from January to October this year and opened six additional temporary off-site passport services facilities.
As of November, a total of 55,574 visas and 551,635 Apostille certificates had been issued, it added.
The DFA also reported the signing of bilateral agreements with various countries on defense, culture, counterterrorism, trade and investment, technology and data protection, and migrant workers protection. (Jerome Aning, Inquirer Research © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
