Around 33,000 college-level children of OFWs to receive ₱30,000 one-time grant

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 1) – President Rodrigo Duterte announced on Monday that around 33,000 children of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who are in college will receive a one-time ₱30,000 cash assistance.

Those qualified to receive the one-time grant are college-level kids of displaced, non-returning, repatriated, or deceased OFWs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The qualified grantee must be enrolled or intending to enroll in a state university or college or in private higher education institutions recognized by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

“The project will be allotted with the amount of ₱1 billion which will benefit about 33,000 students from OFW families,” Duterte said of the project, organized under CHED’s Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education or UniFAST.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana reported to the President on Monday that around 174,000 OFWs have been repatriated since April. He added there is a daily average of 1,500 OFWs who return home to the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last August 17, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Filipinos abroad sent home $2.737 billion in June — a 7.6 percent growth from personal remittances recorded in the same month last year.

The figures broke the three-month decline in remittances seen from March to May, which came amid a global economic slump and the displacement of thousands of OFWs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.