00:00After more than a year, the Filipinos who were abducted by the Huti rebels in Red Sea in 2023 have returned home.
00:09Aside from their families, the government also provided various assistance to those who joined them.
00:15This is Denise Osorio of PTV in Balitang Pambansa.
00:20The 17 Filipino seafarers who arrived in the Philippines last night at 9 p.m. were emotional.
00:26Some of them were just hugged by their relatives who joined them.
00:30They are the Filipinos who were abducted by the Huti rebels in Red Sea in November 2023.
00:36They were ridden by the boat MV Galaxy Leader hijacked by the rebels.
00:40Aside from their relatives, the government also provided assistance such as the Department of Migrant Workers, Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Transportation, Department of Health, and others.
00:53According to DMW Secretary Hans Leo Kakdak, the seafarers were asked to return home immediately.
00:59More about the families reuniting, and it already happened, and we're giving them time to be together.
01:08They said, no, we want to go home and see our families, and so immediately we booked them.
01:14According to the Department of Health, the Filipino seafarers need to go through medical protocol and debriefing first.
01:22They are not traumatized.
01:24They came from a traumatic situation.
01:28What we don't want to happen is for them to develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
01:34DMW is ensuring the assistance and benefits that the seafarers will receive from their agency.
01:40Continuous payment of what we call allotments, right?
01:43The payment of the salaries double in this case, all throughout the 428 days.
01:50So that's number one.
01:52Number two, we provided the necessary financial assistance to the families along the way.
01:57We flew everybody in to Manila to meet them personally face-to-face.
02:02Education and scholarship, yes, that will be among the next round of assistance packages we will provide.
02:11ASEC Kiko de Guzman is here. It's our reintegration ASEC.
02:14So there are also reintegration livelihood packages in store for them.
02:19The seafarers will stay with their families for the next few days while they go through medical protocol.
02:27President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. was the first to thank OMAN for negotiating with them to free the Filipinos.
02:37From PTV Manila, Denise Osorio for Balitang Pambansa.
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