KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/08 January) – The city government is preparing interventions for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Middle East who might be displaced amid increasing tensions between the United States and Iran, an official said.
Herminia Infanta, city Public Employment Service Office (PESO) manager said they can immediately facilitate jobs fair and job matching for repatriated OFWs.
She said the city has at least 6,000 documented OFWs working in the Middle East.
She said these workers obtained working visas through legitimate recruitment agencies based here.
Infanta, however, said she has yet to know the number of OFWs from the city who are working in the Middle East without travel documents or have expired visas and passports.
The PESO has created a social media account as means to know the whereabouts of these OFWs and how they could possibly help them return to the Philippines, she said.
Nilma Rellon, resident of Barangay Binoligan here and an OFW in Kuwait, said many of them became scared after hearing several gunshots nearby days after Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani was killed in an US drone attack.
Rellon said she also several US troops on the streets of Kuwait, which terrified them even more.
Iran retaliated to the US air strike by firing at least a dozen ballistic missiles at two American military bases in Iraq.
She said she wanted to go home.
“I would rather go back home than die here. I fear for my life and the rest of the OFWs here in Kuwait,” she said in her Facebook account. (Malu Cadeliña Manar/MindaNews)