MANILA, Philippines — The foreign affairs department capped its repatriation efforts for 2020 with 327,511 overseas Filipinos brought back throughout the year, it said Monday.
In a statement sent to reporters, the Department of Foreign Affairs disclosed that land-based repatriates made up 231,537 or 70.7% of the total numbers, coming from at least 90 countries around the world.
Related Stories
The remaining 29.3% or 95,974 were also seafarers from more than 150 cruise ships, oil tankers, and other bulk vessels, it said.
READ: For cruise ship crew waiting to come home, it's a bitter-'suite' life
"When countries started to close their borders in March 2020, the tourism industry was heavily hit and cruise line companies were forced to suspend their operations. From March to June 2020, the DFA facilitated the daily arrival of chartered flights - each carrying hundreds of seafarers from cruise ships docked all over Europe, North America, and the Carribbean. Many of the repatriated seafarers have only been on board their ships for weeks when the pandemic struck. They had no choice but to come home, without certainty as to when they will be called again for work," the statement read.
"Calls for repatriation from the Middle East came in May 2020 as the DFA sent its first sweeper flight to the Middle East, via Riyadh and Dammam, Saudi Arabia. This marked the beginning of the mass repatriation of more than 220,000 overseas Filipinos from the region," it also said.
In the wake of chaotic repatriation efforts later probed by Congress, thousands of OFWs found themselves stranded overseas since the outbreak started, while thousands more remained stranded inside quarantine facilities, in airports or other places in the country before they could be allowed to go back to their respective provinces.
Seafarers faced much of the same after they were made to wait weeks for any word about their COVID-19 test results. Two OFWs, one female cruise ship worker and another a Filipina household service worker in Lebanon awaiting repatriation amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, died by suicide in the past year.
"December marked the highest monthly total of repatriated overseas Filipinos at 51,770 despite the cancellation of several flights as a precautionary measure to the spread of the new COVID-19 strain. Sweeper flights were also organized to bring home distressed overseas Filipinos from Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and UAE, in time for the holiday season," the DFA said.
Repatriation breakdown
- Middle East - 228,893 or 69.89%
- Asia & the Pacific - 36,868 or 11.26%
- Americas - 30,971 or 9.46%
- Europe - 28,909 or 8.83%
- Africa - 1,870 or 0.57%
“While these are some of the highlights of the DFA’s repatriation efforts for this year, let us not forget the tireless dedication of our DFA frontliners who facilitated the return and provided airport assistance to hundreds of medical repatriates, victims of trafficking-in-persons, unaccompanied minor children, and senior citizens who were repatriated by the DFA this 2020,” Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs Sarah Arriola also said in a statement.
READ: 63 Filipinos abroad added in DFA's COVID-19 count last week
Filipinos overseas infected with the coronavirus reached 12,892 three days into 2021, with more than 60 cases reported in total last week.
As of the health department's latest case bulletin on Sunday afternoon, exactly 477,807 coronavirus infections have been documented by health authorities in the country since the virus first emerged over a year ago. — Franco Luna with reports from Bella Perez-Rubio and Christian Deiparine