DOLE: Loans released for 10 OFWs from Libya

At least 10 overseas Filipino workers brought home from war-torn Libya were among the beneficiaries of loans under the government's reintegration program, the Department of Labor and Employment said Wednesday. Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the 10 were among the 17 OFWs whose applications for loans amounting to P12.184 million had been approved and released. "We have now 17 OFW beneficiaries whose loans worth P12,184,000.00 have been approved and released by the Land Bank of the Philippines for various business undertakings. Ten of the beneficiary-borrowers were OFWs from Libya," Baldoz said in a news release posted on the DOLE website. Baldoz also reported that 10,172 OFWs had already expressed interest in availing of a loan under the P2-billion national reintegration program. Citing reports from Overseas Workers Welfare Administration head Carmelita Dimzon, Baldzo said 10,172 OFWs had registered under the reintegration program. "Of this number, 4,515 have been trained on entrepreneurship development, 1,606 of whom were trained by the National Reintegration Center for OFWs in cooperation with the Department of Trade and Industry and the Philippine Trade Training Center," she said. She added that her department has endorsed 1,305 loan applications to the Land Bank of the Philippines and another nine to the Development Bank of the Philippines. OFWs from Libya The 10 former OFWs from Libya for whom the OWWA have already requested the issuance of certificates of guarantee, a pre-release loan requirement, include: