P150K awaits Pinoys returning from Lebanon

Cash assistance of P150,00 awaits each overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who will return home from Lebanon, even temporarily, due to the ongoing conflict there, House Deputy Majority Leader Erwin Tulfo announced.

Tulfo made the disclosure after his recent meeting with officials of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

The lawmaker said he was briefed by OWWA Administrator Arnell Ignacio on the state of the repatriation of the Filipinos caught in the war in Lebanon.

“Based on the briefing given to us by Admin Arnell Ignacio, there are 11,000 Pinoys still in Lebanon,” Tulfo said.

“OWWA assured us it is ready, particularly the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), and there are sufficient funds to bring them home,” he said.

Ignacio said the OFWs should come home, even temporarily, for their safety and to wait for the war to end.

He said they are assured of financial assistance from the government to make up for their salaries there.

Apart from the airfare that they will shoulder, the DMW and OWWA will each give P75,000 or a total of P150,000 in cash to every OFWs upon their arrival in the Philippines.

Tulfo said the House of Representatives is closely monitoring the situation not only in Lebanon but in Israel and Iran.

He said Speaker Martin Romualdez had instructed the Appropriations Committee to prepare an additional budget should there be a need to augment the funds of the DMW and OWWA not only for the OFWs in Lebanon but in other war-torn areas in the Middle East. Alvin MurciA