A total of 116 Filipino repatriates who availed of the ongoing amnesty program of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for undocumented foreign nationals arrived in Manila, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Sunday.
This batch brings to 216 the number of Filipinos who benefitted from the amnesty granted by the Arab state, DFA noted.
The first batch of 100 repatriates went back home last August 16 of this year.
The repatriates, composed of 89 females, 27 males, including nine children, arrived from Dubai aboard a Philippine Airlines flight on Sunday morning and were accompanied by Vice Consul Elizabeth Picar Ramos of the Philippine Consulate General in Dubai.
They were welcomed by Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac and other officials.
“The President gave very clear instructions for us in the Department of Foreign Affairs to help our kababayan overseas in any way that we can and our ongoing repatriation efforts in the UAE is part of that,” Undersecretary Arriola told the repatriates.
Arriola also called on the remaining undocumented Filipinos in UAE to take advantage of the amnesty program.
The DFA said it provided the airfare and P5,000 cash dole-out to each of the repatriates, and likewise covered the domestic airfare of 25 of the repatriated workers who were mostly from Mindanao. /je