MANILA – Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Thursday assured the families and relatives of the 274 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have died in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) that all their bodies will be repatriated to the country.
“I would like to inform the next of kin, the relatives of our dead OFWs that at all cost we will repatriate all of them. Though we can’t bring them home all at the same time, we will make sure that we will be able to bring all them back to the country,” Bello said in a Laging Handa public briefing.
He made the assurance a day before the scheduled arrival of the first batch of OFWs’ remains numbering 44 to be brought back to the country.
Bello added that they will hold a dry run of what is going to happen on Friday (July 10) upon the arrival of the remains.
“I’m here at the Villamor Airbase, we conducted a dry run on the arrival of the remained of the 44 OFWs…They will be arriving tomorrow (Friday) at 10:55 a.m.,” Bello said.
Out of the 44, 19 have died of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) while 25 died of natural causes.
He added that another 44 bodies will be flown from Saudi on Sunday (July 12).
“In fact, the 44 will be followed by another 44 on Sunday. They will arrive here on Monday (July 13), we will do that until we have repatriated all our dead OFWs,” he added.
Bello said the families of the dead Filipino workers will receive benefits such as bereavement benefits and insurance.
On the other hand, he added that upon arrival, the remains of those who died of Covid-19 would be immediately cremated.
Meanwhile, relatives of those who died of natural causes have the option to either get the remains and bury or have them cremated.
Last week, the Saudi government extended the deadline for Manila to repatriate the bodies of OFWs, otherwise, they will be buried in the kingdom.