MANILA, 22 April 2003 — Over 3,000 family members of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) thanked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the preparations the government made with regard to the Iraq crisis.
The OFWs thanked Macapagal-Arroyo during an hour-long program at the Philippine Trade Training Center yesterday afternoon. The program was originally held by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to thank OFWs who stood by their employers and helped the Philippine government in their preparations.
The program was highlighted by a 30-minute teleconference between Macapagal-Arroyo in Manila and Ambassador to Kuwait Bayani Mangibin and OWWA Administrator Virgilio Angelo who introduced to the president four prominent OFWs in Kuwait.
This teleconference was broadcast live over four television stations and featured Kuwait OFWs Zenaida Matillano, Carlito Ragos, Efren Rivera, and Florence delos Santos, and their close relatives. The OFWs were tearfully grateful for the government’s preparations on their behalf.
Former ambassador Roy Seneres, who hosted the event, said contract workers in Kuwait from other countries were saying that in case of havoc, they would follow the lead of OFWs since they were the most prepared for the war.
Angelo said the government had indeed managed to allay the fears of OFWs at the job sites as well as their families in the Philippines because of the well-prepared contingency plans initiated by the government with the much-needed support from the private sector.
Thus OWWA also thanked members of the private sector such as the Philippine National Bank (PNB), Globe Communications, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), and Infocom for setting up call centers all over the country for OFW families to call their loved ones in the Middle East and vice versa.
