DFA, DOLE to fly home 1,000 stranded OFWs in Hong Kong

December 22, 2017

More than 1,000 stranded Filipino workers in Hong Kong will be able to spend Christmas with their loved ones in the Philippines after Malacañang approved the proposal of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to bring them home.

“Our  countrymen in Hong Kong and other parts of the world have a very special place in President Duterte’s heart and it is just right that we make their Christmas wishes come true by doing what we can to bring them home,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said in a DFA statement Friday.

Cayetano said the President approved the plan he and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III put together on Wednesday to assist the approximately 1,000 Filipinos who found themselves stranded in Hong Kong after they were defrauded by the travel agency they bought their tickets home from.

Cayetano, co-chair of the Cabinet Cluster on Overseas Workers, said the DFA and the DOLE, through the Office of Migrant Workers Affairs (OMWA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), will advance the cost of roundtrip travel of the affected workers.

Cayetano said Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has also placed the Philippine Air Force on standby in case air assets would have to be flown to Hong Kong to ferry the workers home.

Cayetano said he has instructed the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong to file criminal charges against PEYA Travel, the Filipino-owned travel agency that defrauded the workers.

“We also will pursue a civil suit against PEYA Travel to compensate our kababayans for the damages they suffered,” Cayetano said.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola said that under the arrangements with OWWA Administrator Hans Cacdac, the two agencies will split the cost of roundtrip air travel of the affected workers.

Arriola said affected workers will be asked to issue an undertaking assigning the refund of their tickets bought from PEYA Travel to the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong.

Arriola said Philippine Airlines and Cathay Pacific have offered discounted airfare and will also send h bigger aircraft to accommodate stranded workers to ensure they will be home before Christmas.

Arriola said Cebu Pacific has also offered 50 complimentary return tickets for the affected Filipinos who are mostly household service workers.

Acting Consul General Roderico Atienza said approximately 160 victims have approached the Consulate to seek assistance but he expects the number of victims seeking assistance to increase. DMS