799 OFWs remaining at Hajj Seaport Terminal bound for home in a week
With their airline bookings assured through the zealous efforts of the Office of the Vice President and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), the 799 overstaying OFWs who now remain at the Hajj Seaport Terminal could finally be home in a week, in accordance with an arrangement reached on 30 May between the Jawazat (Saudi Directorate General for Passports) and Officer-in-Charge Consul Leo Tito Ausan, Jr. of the Philippine Consulate General, together with Labor Attaché Vicente Cabe of POLO in Jeddah.
In the arrangement, starting today, 31 May, the OFWs (in batches of fifty or so and in the order of their admission into the Terminal) will be brought by bus to the Deportation Center starting 8 o’clock in the morning and will be individually subjected to the usual clearing process (i.e. fingerprinting, interview, etc.). Thereafter, they will all be returned to the Terminal. OWWA Jeddah led by Weloff Benny Reyes will then gather the names of those who are cleared to exit and will immediately send these to OWWA Manila for ticket issuance. Cleared and ticketed OFWs will then depart for the Philippines on the dates scheduled on their tickets without anymore going through and staying at the Deportation Center, as was previously the procedure. The arrangement, which significantly spares the OFWs from an additional period of stay while awaiting exit clearance at the Deportation Center, would go on until every one of the 799 OFWs will have been cleared for exit and flown home, hopefully, in time for the marking of the Migrant Worker’s Day on 7 June.
During the orientation meeting conducted by Consul Ausan, Labatt Cabe and Weloff Reyes on the foregoing welcome development held at the Hajj Terminal in the afternoon of 30 May, the OFWs expressed gladness that they are finally going home and profusely thanked Vice President Binay, the Office of the President-Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and its Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs (OUMWA), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), OWWA, House Representatives – Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs (COWA), National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF), the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah and POLO-OWWA Jeddah for their unceasing, concerted and coordinated efforts to have them repatriated to the Philippines.
