BY ROY MABASA
For the last six months since the outbreak of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, the Philippine government has already repatriated a total of 135,290 overseas Filipinos, a huge majority of them composed of sea-based workers.
Of the total, 38.9 percent (52,639 OFs) are sea-based while 61.1 percent (82,651 OFs) are land-based.
This past week alone, the Department of Foreign Affairs said 10,573 were brought home from the Middle East through 27 special commercial repatriation flights and two DFA-chartered flights.
Some 2,984 sea-based Filipinos returned home this week, including two medical repatriations from Seychelles and Brazil. The repatriated seafarers came from various countries including Canada, the United States, Japan, India, China, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, and Greece. (Roy Mabasa)
