DUBAI: With the Philippine government’s repatriation program in full swing and most jobless, stranded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Dubai lining up for their turn, there are also those who refuse to go home as yet.
They basically have three main reasons:
- Loved ones back home needing financial support;
- Not having been able to save enough and,
- bleak prospects of getting employed in the Philippines.
Among those who have opted to stay behind is 32-year-old, Maria Ritchelle Uringan Ferras, single mother of two kids aged 12 and nine years old.
“Sometimes I think of going home,” she said, “kasi po nauubusan na ng raket at ang mahal ng renta sa bahay, pagkain pa.”
“Pero I have kids to send to school and a family to feed. Kaya nagbabaka-sakali pa na makahanap ng maganda-gandang work, umaasa na kahit papano may magandang oportunidad pang naghihintay sa kabila ng lahat ng ito,” she added.
Ferras is from Abra; she arrived in Dubai in June of 2014 and is staying in Satwa. She was property manager at a real estate company when she lost her job back in March due to the pandemic. Ferras has been surviving through odd jobs.
Meantime, Fe Alapanta, an assistant teacher, has been jobless for the past four months as schools have temporarily closed due to the pandemic.
“Nag-iisa lang ako dito sa UAE. Sa awa ng Diyos, nakakaraos gawa ng mga taong nagbibigay ng kahit konti na ginagamit ko sa pang-araw-araw na pangkain habang naghihintay po na magbukas na ang school,” Alapanta said.
Despite the daily grind she’s in, worrying about food and where to get money for her bedspace rent, Alapanta said she does not intend to go home. “I don’t have any plans to return to the Philippines right now because walang ipon… sobrang liit ng sahod at laging late pa po,” she said.
Alapanta, who hails from Isabela, is also a single mom who has 13-year-old twins, both of them girls.
Still another OFW, 36-year old Chona Bation of Zamboanga City and a grocery store cashier in Dubai’s neighboring city of Sharjah, said she’d rather take her chances.
Bation, who has been surviving through money sent her by relatives back home as as well as dole-out groceries from Good Samaritans in the UAE, said she was at a quandary about going home.
“Nakakahiya nga na sila pa ang nagpapadala sa akin ngayon,” Bation said, referring to her kin. “Sabi naman nila ok lang kasi nung may trabaho naman ako ay pinapadalhan ko sila. Naaawa rin sila sa akin,” Bation said.
She said she had wanted to go home “pero patay din dun sa amin.”
“Wala din akong magiging trabaho at mahirap makabalik,” Bation said.
Having just renewed her visit visa status from money sent by her auntie who also works in the Middle East, Bation said she plans to apply for a school job. She has been in and out of part time jobs recently.
Flights
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), of the 50,887 overseas Filipinos brought home in July, 35,656 were from the Middle East – with the greatest number of repatriates arriving from the UAE at14,948.
The latest to be repatriated was a batch of 354 OFWs who left Dubai International Airport in the evening of Aug. 5 on board Philippine Airlines flight PR 659. Another batch of over 300 left on July 30 and still another on July 24 with 351 OFWs.
The Philippine Consulate General repatriated the first batch of OFWs, numbering 370, in mid-June on board a Cebu Pacific flight 5J 19.
Consul General Paul Raymund Cortes has said that they were reviewing some 8,000 repatriation requests from OFWs in Dubai and its neighboring cities of Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras al Khaimah and Fujairah.
According to Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, there were 400,000 documented OFWs in Dubai.
In all, officials estimate that there were approximately 750,000 documented OFWs in the United Arab Emirates.
The Daily Bread 