A total of 192 Filipinos are ready to be repatriated from Lebanon, Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac said Thursday.

In a Palace briefing, Cacdac said that 192 Filipinos are booked for two commercial flights from October 11 to 28, out of which 11 are scheduled to arrive over the weekend.

“We have 192 ready for repatriation, and around 413 in the pipeline so to speak, meaning to say, yet to be processed by Lebanese Immigration. The 413 would include the number of latest applicants being processed by the DMW which will be forwarded to the Lebanese general security. So it’s a two-step process as far as we are concerned,” Cacdac said

Cacdac said there are 11,000 Filipinos in Lebanon and among them, 179 are in the four shelters in Beirut.

He assured that Filipinos staying in the shelters were “safe and sound”.

“Those in the shelter, they are fine. They are safe and sound. We have a social worker. And (Overseas Workers Welfare Administration Administrator Arnell Ignacio) recently deployed one of his welfare officer doctors. So we also have a doctor there looking after our OFWs, and we have, again, augmented personnel. We have a nurse…we have social workers and a doctor doing the rounds in the four different shelters,” Cacdac said

“Actually the other shelter is still being reserved, so it hasn’t been used yet. The three shelters are being used now,” he added.

The DMW and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) P150,000 worth of aid to repatriated Filipinos.

Lebanon remains under Alert Level 3, wherein Filipinos could repatriate voluntarily. Jaspearl Tan/DMS