OFWs-Protection

At least 15 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who were rescued from a tsunami-stricken shipbuilding facility in northeast Japan have been re-employed after opting to stay there, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said.

Lawmakers yesterday filed a bill seeking a P9 billion supplemental budget to augment the government’s depleting funds for the evacuation and repatriation of Filipino workers in disaster-stricken Japan and in strife-torn countries in the North African and Middle Eastern regions.

MANILA, Philippines – Senate finance committee chairman Sen. Franklin Drilon yesterday revealed that the government, specifically the Overseas Workers and Welfare Administration (OWWA), has about P13 billion in contingency funds to repatriate overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Japan and troubled Middle Eastern and North African countries.

At least 2,300 Filipino nurses have refused to be evacuated even after the United Nations approved military strikes against Libya.

An alliance of Filipino migrants group in the Middle East yesterday scored the Aquino government’s declaration on “voluntary repatriation at OFWs own expense,” saying this is a disservice to the sector that is helping the economy being kept afloat through their billions of remittances and fees and exactions imposed by the government.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Wednesday again banned the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in Bahrain following the growing political tension there.

MANILA, Philippines –  Malacañang said yesterday it would repatriate overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Bahrain who may want to go home, but will not yet resort to forced evacuation and repatriation despite the declaration of martial law in that country.

President Aquino bragged to reporters that his government was among the first that immediately offered humanitarian aid of some $14 million to Japan, but he now refuses to order the evacuation of some 300,000 Filipinos in Japan, and unconscionably tells its citizens in Japan not to expect his government to pay for their airfare to…

Vice President Jejomar Binay has expressed the need to review the government’s contingency plans for overseas Filipino workers amid increasing tensions in the Middle East and North Africa.

The events of the past weeks, from the turbulence in the Arab world to the earthquake in New Zealand, have clearly driven home the message that government has to be better organized to serve the OFWs better. The finger pointing and blame throwing we hear in the evening newscasts can’t do anybody any good.

In an attempt to attend the numerous requests for assistance coming from undocumented and overstaying overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), several groups of Filipino migrants join hands to work for the legalization and repatriation of about more than 2,000 undocumented and overstaying Filipino workers, mostly women, in Saudi Arabia.

THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has imposed an internal deadline to relocate and repatriate the remaining overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in critical areas in Libya by today.

ALBAY Gov. Joey Salceda has shown how a government should deal with a crisis involving OFWs.

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) – Some 134 Filipinos are now out of Libya and on their way home while 13,000 more will be repatriated in light of escalating tensions in the North African state, the Department of Foreign Affairs said today.

MANILA, Philippines – Officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) blamed each other for the government’s poor response in saving Filipino workers in troubled countries like Libya at a hearing at the House of Representatives yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – Apart from the three whose execution has been deferred, there are 79 other Filipinos awaiting their fate on China’s death row, an overseas workers group said yesterday.