MANILA, Philippines—Vice President Noli De Castro Tuesday assured the public that the government was ready for the homecoming of some 50,000 to 100,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who could be displaced by the financial turmoil in the United States and other parts of the world.

De Castro, presidential adviser on OFWs, said in an interview that “everything is being done to cushion the impact of the possible influx of said OFWs back to the country.”

He said that officials of the Department of Labor and Employment and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) had met to map out and implement contingency measures to address the needs of these OFWs.

The meeting, he said, was meant to offer displaced OFWs with alternative sources of livelihood to substitute for the jobs that they lost abroad.

De Castro said that Middle East economies where the majority of OFWs work were not seriously affected by the crisis.

Based on a labor department report, there were already more than 50,000 possibly displaced OFWs in the US agricultural and service industries, according to De Castro.

“We cannot just neglect our duty to help our modern-day heroes after they lost their jobs abroad,” he said. “We have to find them alternative means of livelihood even on temporary basis or at least while there is a global economic crisis.”

De Castro said that the global financial crisis, if not properly addressed, might affect jobs abroad.

He said the government was exploring and opening new job opportunities in other stable markets such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Guam.

De Castro said job matching was in place in which returnees’ skills would be compared with the available jobs in the domestic market.

Another measure, he said, was the retraining of workers, through TESDA.

For OFWs with savings, De Castro urged them to take advantage of the Kabuhayan component of the 2002 Balikbayan Law he sponsored while he was a senator. Under the law, an OFW can buy $2,000 worth of livelihood tools tax-free.

“We strongly urge those with savings to start even a small business as their source of livelihood while they are out of work. This would also be good even to those who are currently employed for this could be additional income for them,” De Castro said.