Free education for kids of laid-off OFWs pushed

MANILA, Philippines - Despite efforts of the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) at giving out loans to deserving laid-off overseas Filipino workers, a lawmaker is urging the government to give scholarships to their children.

Deputy Majority Leader Jesus Crispin Remulla asked the OWWA to look into the possibility of giving free education to the children of retrenched OFWs.

Remulla said that most Filipinos go out of the country for work to provide and sustain the education of their children.

"How can these children now go to school if they don’t even have money for transportation, allowance and for books because their parents, who are working abroad, were laid-off?" Remulla said.

The Cavite lawmaker requested the OWWA to give “preferential attention" to the educational needs of the displaced workers’ children “instead of their program for scholarship grants available only to the first 1,000 applicants."

He also proposed that the OWWA put up an assistance desk in the airport to assist the retrenched OFWs.

But Carmelina Velasquez, OWWA director, told GMANews.TV that the welfare agency had been assisting children of OFWs with scholarships regardless if their parents were laid-off or not.

Velasquez said that all active members could avail of the scholarships for their children, who still need to pass a qualifying examination.

More than 5,400 Filipinos have been laid off various countries as economies began to feel the impact of the global economic storm.

A bulk of the displaced workers came from export-dependent destination countries like Taiwan, Macau (China), and even some Middle East countries like the United Arab Emirates.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had earlier announced the allotment of a P1-billion livelihood fund to help the victims of the global economic crisis get back on their feet.

Heeding her call, OWWA had already given out loans ranging from P30,000 to P50,000 to 50 deserving OFWs who were casualties of the global economic crisis. - Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV

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