Pangasinan puts up help desk for OFWs

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan, Philippines – The provincial government has set up an OFW Desk and Crisis Hotline to help overseas workers from Pangasinan who are in distress in Libya.

It also extended P10,000 each to those who were forced to return home to this province following the violent Libyan uprising.

Gov. Amado Espino Jr. and sixth district board member Ranjit Shahani led the launching of the project with the first batch of eight OFWs from Pangasinan who had returned home from Libya given financial assistance while relatives of OFWs from this province who are still in that country received a cash gift from the governor.

Shahani has a pending ordinance for the setting up of an OFW Assistance Desk Center yet he was happy Espino already launched the project to extend timely help for their kabaleyan (provincemates).

Espino called some Pangasinenses in Libya to check on their condition. He later passed on the telephone to their relatives who were eager to talk to them and urged them to go home.

Eighty-nine-year-old Maxima Martin from Barangay Nagsaag, San Manuel town talked to her daughter Lolita Martin Paguio, a nurse who has been working in a government hospital in Tripoli, Libya for 23 years.

Paguio said they were now okay and would rather stay at the hospital where she is working.

Amando Aqui from Dagupan City, who works as a carpenter in Benghazi, Libya, said he experienced days of hunger when the chaos erupted.

His colleague, Joseph Fernandez, also from Dagupan City, said he was lucky to return home although empty-handed.

Both Aqui and Fernandez, who were repatriated last March 3, said they would still prefer to work abroad but no longer in the Middle East.

Jose Tomelden, 75, from San Fabian town, whose daughter Lorna Tomelden has been working as a midwife in a private hospital in Benghazi for three years, lauded Espino for helping OFWs in distress.

His daughter is in safe condition, he said, adding that he felt a big sigh of relief after talking to her.

“Regardless of the amount given to us (relatives of OFWs from Pangasinan who are still in Libya), the concern of the governor to us is very good,” Tomelden said after receiving a cash gift from Espino.

Other Pangasinenses who were repatriated from Libya would receive financial help from the provincial government through the OFW Desk and Crisis Hotline, which operates in 24 hours and can be contacted at (075) 662-1120.