Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 18) —The government will focus on providing livelihood assistance instead of cash aid for returning overseas Filipinos, an official said on Saturday.
“It’s time to shift to livelihood assistance, at ‘yan po ay gagawin natin sa darating na buwan, itong Agosto at Setyembre (and we will do this in the coming months, this August and September),” Overseas Workers Welfare Administration head Hans Cacdac said in a media briefing.
Cacdac explained that social amelioration was earlier prioritized since it was the “immediate need” as more than 300,000 overseas Filipino workers lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the Labor department’s AKAP program, more than 200,000 OFWs received cash assistance worth a total of ₱2.5 billion, Cacdac said.
In May, the Department of Budget and Management granted an additional ₱1 billion fund for the one-time cash aid program of ₱10,000 each OFW.
Cacdac said scholarship assistance will also be given for one college dependent of every returning OFW.
To date, more than 100,000 OFWs have come home, majority or 95,000 have been sent to their hometowns, Cacdac said.
Amid travel restrictions due to COVID-19, Filipinos can return as long as they test negative for the infection through an RT-PCR test.
