Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac shared that 80,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have received financial assistance through the AKSYON Fund since it was implemented under the administration of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.

"We are thanking the President because the AKSYON Fund, since the time of our President and there is a budget from the Congress, 80,000 OFWs have been paid by the legal and financial assistance. This is a legal, medical and financial assistance fund," Cacdac said in a radio interview.

Aside from financial aid, 14,000 OFWs received legal assistance. The DMW has legal retainers in 25 countries who are ready to serve Filipino workers.

"There are 14,000 OFWs who have cases and we helped them. We have hired legal retainers in 25 countries all over the world. We have local lawyers there," Cacdac said.

"They [legal retainers] know how to speak the language and are national to the host country. For example, in Saudi, we hired a Saudi lawyer. 14,000 cases of OFWs are handled by our legal counsels all around the world," the DMW chief added.

According to Cacdac, more than 3,000 OFWs benefited from medical assistance.

"More than 3,000 are in need of medical assistance. We paid for hospitals and medicines because many of our countrymen have insurance. If they have medical insurance, we allow them to pay for the insurance, but if they don't have insurance, we help them," he said.

Cacdac added that aside from the medical assistance provided by the AKSYON Fund, the OFW Hospital has served around 80,000 OFWs and their family members.

For the DMW chief, the AKSYON Fund is a highly important program, the funding of which was recently increased to P3 billion by the President to further expand support for the country's modern-day heroes.

"When we meet President Marcos, he always asks how our AKYON Fund is doing. In fact, the P3 billion that the President announced, we allocated to the action fund, which is legal, medical, financial, and repatriation assistance. Our chartered flights, the seven chartered flights that the DMW invested from UAE [United Arab Emirates], we used that fund," Cacdac said.