DMW seeks supplemental budget if ME conflict worsens

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March 7, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) will seek a supplemental budget as the Middle East conflict is expected to drag on, with more overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) wanting to return home.

During the Senate foreign relations committee hearing yesterday, Sen. Risa Hontiveros asked the DMW if its P3.2-billion budget for repatriation this year is enough to assist the 1,416 Filipinos seeking help to be brought home safely from conflict zones.

Hontiveros asked DMW Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac if the agency would need a supplemental budget to help speed up the repatriation.

Cacdac said the supplemental budget would be needed “in a worst-case scenario” or when the situation worsens.

“We can live with the current budget with the current level of repatriation requests. However, the question of whether we can handle the worst-case scenario also depends on the increasing number of repatriation requests so that we can bring them home efficiently,” Cacdac said.

“The short answer is yes, we need supplemental funding,” he added.

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) administrator Patricia Yvonne Caunan said the agency has a remaining P1.5-billion Emergency Repatriation Fund.

But this amount is only enough to repatriate over 10,000 Filipinos, because the average cost of repatriation is up to P150,000, Caunan said.

With a total 2.4 million overseas Filipinos in the Middle East, the OWWA chief said even if one percent of that or 24,000 Filipinos seek to get repatriated, the OWWA would need P3.67 billion, which means a P2.2-billion funding gap.

When told that there are an estimated 93,000 Filipinos, both documented and undocumented, in the Middle East crisis alert countries, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian estimated that at P150,000 repatriation cost per Filipino, the DMW would need a supplemental budget of up to P13 billion.

Asked by Sen. Kiko Pangilinan how long the conflict would last, Department of Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Germina Aguilar-Usudan said it could take an additional four to eight weeks because of the US plan to fire more rockets into Iran and to have a role in the regime change there.

“We received reports that Iran would like to negotiate, but it was discounted by the Iranian government and Trump has said yesterday that he’s more ready for war this time,” Usudan said, adding that the conflict would escalate into a “protracted war.”

Meanwhile, 34 more OFWs in Dubai have safely returned to the Philippines, the DMW said.

Alarmists

Philippine Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Alfonso Ferdinand Ver called on the public yesterday not to believe alarmists spreading wrong information about the situation of Filipinos in the country amid the Middle East conflict.

“We know the real situation here. We know how it is safe and stable here,” he said.

“We’re open, not just for the public, but our lines of communication are open,” Ver said in a video shared by the Philippine embassy’s official Facebook page. — Christine Boton, Michael Punongbayan, Elijah Felice Rosales