1,575 OFWs converted Libyan dinars to peso—BSP

MANILA, Philippines—Over a thousand Filipino workers repatriated from conflict-torn Libya were able to exchange their dinars for Philippine peso under the Currency Exchange Facility, which will expire on Friday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said.

The BSP said 1,575 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Libya availed themselves of the central bank facility after their sudden and unexpected loss of job resulting from the political turmoil in the North African country.

The amount of Libyan dinars they exchanged for pesos under the facility amounted to P12.3 million (371,925 Libyan dinars), data from the central bank showed.

Under the central bank’s facility, OFWs repatriated from Libya were allowed to exchange their Libyan dinars for Philippine peso. The facility is time-bound, however, and is scheduled to be terminated on Friday.

The BSP said it did not expect anymore OFWs to be needing to exchange Libyan dinars to pesos.

Following the repatriation of Libya-based OFWs, many of them did not have money to spend in the Philippines. This was because they did not have time to exchange their Libyan dinars to US dollar, or other currencies convertible to pesos, before they went back home.

In the Philippines, there is currently no foreign exchange service for Libyan dinars. Philippine banks do not accept Libyan dinars for currency exchange because there is no significant trade between the Philippines and Libya.

The BSP was flooded with requests to address the problem of the OFWs returning from Libya, and so it put up the Currency Exchange Facility.

The number of OFWs who used the facility, however, is much smaller than the actual number of Filipinos repatriated from Libya.

Government data earlier showed that there were 26,000 OFWs estimated to be working in Libya as of March, when the BSP was asked to put up the facility. Of the number, 10,000 were repatriated to the Philippines as they were based in cities at the center of the conflict.

The BSP has allocated as much as P100 million for the Currency Exchange Facility, taking into account an assumption that all 10,000 OFWS would exchange P10,000 worth of Libyan dinars.

“The BSP Cash Department, its regional offices/branches and authorized agent banks shall no longer accept Libyan dinars for conversion to pesos effective July 1, 2011,” the BSP said in a public notice.