Overseas Workers Welfare Administration chief Hans Leo Cacdac. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — A total of 923,652 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been repatriated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said Thursday.
He said that the OFWs were provided assistance by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) until they returned to their respective home local government units (LGUs).
“At the beginning of today, 923,652 na po ang napauwi natin mula sa DOLE-OWWA and the interagency effort na inatasan ng ating Pangulo [Rodrigo Duterte] na pinasisinayaan ni Sec. [Silvestre] Bello at ito ay patungkol sa food, transport and hotel quarantine accommodation ng ating mga mahal na OFWs na nanunumbalik sa kani-kanilang mga home LGUs,” Cacdac said during the Laging Handa briefing.
(As of today, we have sent home 923,652 and the interagency effort, which was ordered by our president and facilitated by Sec. Bello to provide food and hotel quarantine accommodation for our beloved OFWs who return to their home LGUs.)
In the meantime, the government is expecting around 3,000 OFWs to come in the country this Thursday as the cap for daily arrivals was raised to 5,000.
“So, 3,000 of the 5,000 were OFWs, and of the three thousand 3,000, 10 percent doon ay [are] not fully vaccinated. So, 10 percent ng (of) 3,000 ang usually na binibilang natin [is what we count] for mandatory hotel quarantine,” shared Cacdac.
He added that the agency expects more OFWs to return to the country in the coming days.