LABOR Secretary Silvestre Bello on Thursday said the Department of Budget and Management has allocated an additional P1 billion for the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) cash assistance program for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) affected by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis.
Bello said the extra funding will be used to augment the dwindling allocation for the DOLE-AKAP for OFWs program.
“I just received notice from the DBM that they have increased our funds because they know it will run short. It is good that they pitied us and gave us another P1 billion,” said Bello, adding: “We will give them immediately to our displaced OFWs because they really need it.”
The DOLE has earlier asked for an additional P2.5 billion funds to boost its cash assistance program for displaced overseas workers.
Bello said the labor department will reopen the applications for the one-time P10,000 or $200 cash assistance program, which is intended to help 150,000 displaced OFWs.
Last Wednesday, Bello announced the suspension of the applications for the subsidy as he noted that the 409,020 applications filed as of May 12 was already way beyond the target number of beneficiaries.
