Baldoz to new OWWA chief: Ensure assistance to OFWs from Libya, Iraq


 Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz's marching orders to newly sworn in Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) head Rebecca Calzado is to extend all forms of assistance to repatriated Filipino workers from Libya and Iraq.

One such assistance, Baldoz said Monday, is the reintegration program that she said should be extended even to OFWs who are not OWWA members.

“The same goes true with non-OWWA members. We should provide them livelihood starter kits as some of them may have known about this program from the on-site implementation of the Balik-Pinas Balik Hanapbuhay Project,” Baldoz said.

Baldoz directed Calzado to work closely with the National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NCRO) in readying livelihood and job referral assistance, temporary shelter, medical care and counseling for the concerned OFWs.

This package assistance is under the government's National Reintegration Program for OFWs, Baldoz said.

OWWA is an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment.

Baldoz said OWWA—together with the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), licensed recruitment agencies, and their insurance carriers— should focus on ensuring that OFWs affected by instability and political upheavals should be brought home fast, safe and sound.

“In carrying out the mission of bringing home fast, safe, and sound our OFWs from Libya and Iraq, work with the DOLE Crisis Quick Response Team which I established and headed by POEA Administrator Hans Cacdac, particularly in coordinating for the issuance of airline tickets to the OFWs within 48 hours,” Baldoz said.

The team was created when the current crisis in Libya erupted and is tasked to closely monitor and assess the situation of Filipino workers there and in other crises-hit countries.

Calzado officially assumed office on Monday after she was sworn in by Baldoz last Friday at the DOLE office in Intramuros, Manila. She replaced Administrator Carmelita Dimzon, who retired in May. —KBK, GMA News


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