MANILA, Philippines – While the Saudi Arabian government extended the deadline by 4 months, the Philippines fears it will not meet Saudi’s cut-off date for undocumented workers to legalize their status or get repatriated.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario on Thursday, August 8, said he has written a letter to Saudi’s Foreign Ministry to address this problem.  Del Rosario, in particular, said he has requested a meeting to discuss means to speed up the processing of papers for undocumented overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

In his letter, Del Rosario thanked Saudi’s foreign minister for the extended deadline, which was originally set July 3.

Over 8,000 Filipinos need to have their papers processed before November 3. Filipinos who fail to meet the new deadline face up to two years in prison and fines of at least 100,000 riyal or US$27,000. 

READ: Saudi extends deadline for illegal workers

“I also asked him to see if I can go back there within the week, or within two weeks, because I needed to take up with him how to expedite the processing of our people, because it looks like we may not even be able to process everyone during the extension provided,” Del Rosario told senators in a hearing on the sex-for-flight scheme.

READ: Envoy hit for ‘inaction’ over OFW abuse

Del Rosario expressed his concern after a trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last weekend to see for himself “to what extent our people are being processed.”

He recounted a visit to a processing area in Jeddah at around midnight. It was the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the Saudi government designated 11 pm to 4 am as the hours to process papers from the Philippines as well as Bangladesh.

READ: 5 facts about Ramadan

“I noted that there was only one government official from Saudi that was handling the processing of several hundreds who were waiting to be able to get their exit visas. And so very promptly, the next morning, I wrote a letter to the foreign minister,” Del Rosario said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Monday, August 5, said 1,557 Filipinos have returned to the Philippines from Saudi.

This is around 16% of the estimated 10,000 undocumented Filipinos seeking repatriation, based on estimates by the migrant workers’ group Migrante.

This also means the Philippines has repatriated only around 740 Filipinos from Saudi since the deadline was extended a month ago. The Philippines, then, will have to repatriate around 8,440 more Filipinos in less than 3 months if it is to meet the cut-off date. – Rappler.com