02 JANUARY 2017 – A total of 27 overseas Filipinos, including two minors, were able to spend the New Year with their loved ones in the Philippines after the Philippine Embassy in Beirut, through the Assistance-to-Nationals Section, POLO and OWWA, facilitated their repatriation on 30 December 2016, in coordination with the DFA’s Office of Migrant Workers Affairs.

The repatriation of the group was made possible through the cooperation between the Embassy and the Directorate General of the General Security (Immigration Agency) of the Republic of Lebanon, which issued exit clearances for the OFWs and the two minors. Among the repatriates were 15 wards sheltered in the Migrant Workers and other Filipinos Resource Center (MWFRC) in the Embassy and two wards of the Caritas Lebanon Migrants Center, all of whom were able to avail of the Assistance-to-Nationals Fund.

All the repatriates arrived safely the next day, 31 December 2016, via Kuwait Airways Flight Number KU 417 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, where they were assisted by OWWA’s Repatriation and Assistance Division (RAD). END