DFA: 47,000 OFWs still stranded in Middle East amid COVID-19 pandemic

Around 47,000 overseas Filipino workers stranded in the Middle East have yet to be repatriated amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Thursday.

"As of now, we're still looking at around 47,000 Filipinos stuck in the Middle East. We're just waiting for our SARO actually (Special Allotment Release Order)," DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola said during the Senate hearing on the agency's proposed P21.96 billion budget for 2021.

Arriola thanked Congress for crafting Bayanihan to Recover as One Act which allocated P820 million to the DFA for assistance to overseas Filipinos this year.

"Once we get our SARO, we will resume our flights because we've been chartering already a lot of flights. We've already chartered 57 flights using our original Assistance to Nationals (ATN) fund," she said.

Further, Arriola said the DFA is settling some dues that are being required by employers of stranded OFWs.

"Some of the employers would ask us for the deployment costs which as of now we're also doing but quietly. If we don't do that, we won't be able to bring them home," she said.

More and more Filipinos are losing jobs and becoming undocumented because of the global health crisis, according to Arriola.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. expounded on the jobs in the region that had been affected by the pandemic.

"The jobs that we are losing in the Middle East are the better ones—the engineers because the projects have ended. Those higher and more skilled jobs have been lost and it doesn't look like they'll be coming back anytime soon," he said.

Filipino domestic workers in the Middle East, on the other hand, are not much affected, he added. 

As of September 30, the DFA only has around P19 million remaining in its ATN fund after more than 208,000 OFWs have been repatriated to the Philippines, according to Arriola. — RSJ, GMA News