DOLE and CHED to Provide Assistance to College-Level Kids of OFWs

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) will provide one-time monetary assistance of  ₱30,000 to college-level children of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision was made after the said government agencies agreed to a  ₱1 billion scholarship fund to be rolled out this year. 

The program, called Tabang OFW, will benefit 30,000 qualified college students of repatriated, displaced, and deceased OFWs. 

DOLE states that they will issue, “orders, circulars, or guidelines that will spell out the effective and efficient implementation of the program, including the appropriate utilization of funds, adherence to the usual government accounting and auditing rules, and submission of reports.”

At the same time, CHED announced that they will release the  ₱1 billion fund to DOLE for the implementation of the educational assistance program. 

CHED’s Unified Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) will be assisting DOLE’s efforts on the promotion of the Tabang OFW program. It will also assist in the making of the guidelines, coverage, and criteria in availing the subsidy under the program. 

DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello expressed that, “We hope this will go a long way in helping our OFWs and their children in these most challenging times. By doing this, we also hope we can partly repay our modern-day heroes.”

According to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), approximately 220,000 repatriated OFWs have been sent back to their hometowns with the aid of the Balik Probinsya program.