OWWA loses P70M in loans, stops aid to OFWs

MANILA, Philippines - The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) incurred losses of about P70 million in pre-departure loans extended to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque on Sunday said he decided to suspend the said OWWA assistance after the OFWs failed to pay their loans.

“I decided to suspend it kasi nga puro utang walang nagbabayad, so nalulugi kami (I decided to suspend it because nobody's paying and we're incurring losses)," Roque said in a telephone interview.

Roque said the OWWA allocated P100 million for the pre-departure loan program. However, he stopped the program when loans that were largely unpaid reached P70 million.

“Ang naipautang na namin is P70 million, pero ang nagbayad lang is 30 percent, so how can we survive? (We have lent P70 million, but only 30 percent of the borrowers have so far paid, so how can we survive)?" he said

He said the OWWA also asked the borrowers' co-makers to pay for the loans. However, the agency failed to collect money from them, and instead heard some OFWs saying that they would no longer pay their debts because they already paid the OWWA a $25-membership fee on a per contract basis.

“Ang sabi nila pera din naman daw 'yan ng OFWs, kinokolekta sa kanila yung $25 kaya bakit pa sila magbabayad (The OFWs asked why would they have to pay for the loans when they had already paid $25), " said Roque.

“Historically sa OWWA 'yan ang problema, ang sama ng payment rate, (Historically, that's the problem at OWWA, payment rate is poor), " he added.

About 2,000 to 3,000 OFWs are being deployed every day, which means the OWWA collects around $75,000 or over P3 million daily.

While Roque admitted that it is stipulated in the Migrants Workers Act of 1995 that the government, particularly the OWWA, should allocate pre-departure funding for OFWs, he said the mere fact that the agency failed to recover the investment it infused for the program was enough basis to discontinue the project.

Roque said the OWWA had been lenient to OFWs as it gave them and their co-makers
one year to pay the loans at minimal interest rates.

The OWWA is now going after the borrowers to recover the P70 million that it released for
the pre-departure program, according to Roque.

Roque said that despite the loss, the OWWA's fund remained stable.

The current total asset of the OWWA stands at P10.2 billion, according to Roque. About P8.2 billion of the asset is in various investments, while the rest are being used for workers' welfare assistance program such as livelihood projects, scholarships, training, and repatriation funds. - GMANews.TV

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