MANILA - Reychill Jaylo is a 31-year-old truck driver. In 2015, he signed up for a two-year contract to work for a construction company in Saudi Arabia.

But after six months, he was forced to come home due to delayed wages, and unfair expenses charged against his salary.

"They say it wasn't like this before. It is only now that things have gotten bad. I know there are a lot of Filipinos with no work, and no papers to work. I was told there are almost a hundred, likely even more," he said.

Vivian Inmenzo is the wife of Leovigildo, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) veteran of nine years, who works for MMG Mohammad Al Mujil Group, a company that lays down pipelines for oil refineries.

Vivian said her husband and more than 500 other workers at MMG lost their jobs, and stopped receiving salaries in 2014.

"There were some who managed to find new jobs, but even in those new companies they weren't paid. The families here are hard up, especially those who rely solely on the salaries of their husbands. There are a lot of kids who weren't able to enroll last June," she said.

Vivian added that the government is helping out through the Philippine Overseas Employment Association, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Philippine embassy in Saudi Arabia.

They have promised to bring home the MMG employees this February. But beyond that group, government doesn't have data yet on just how many OFWs are in trouble.

These aren't isolated cases. ANC spoke to two more OFWs still stationed in Saudi Arabia, working for two separate construction companies.

They shared the same story of delayed wages, and broken contracts.

As early as October last year, reports came out of the Saudi Arabian government delaying payments to contractors.

In December, the Kingdom announced a series of spending cuts for 2016, including a reported 63 percent cut in infrastructure spending to trim a record budget deficit of close to $100 billion.

That deficit ballooned as Saudi Arabia's income from oil exports plunged in step with the fall in oil prices.

Economists have been warning of the impact of low oil prices on OFWs in the Middle East since the start of the year.

"One of the growth drivers is remittances, but there are political uncertainties in the Middle East and, of course, oil prices have gone down. So the economies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, are severely challenged. So they might be sending OFWs home," said one economist, Calixto Chikiamco.

Meanwhile, the Blas Ople Policy Center and Training Institute, set up to attend to the needs of distressed OFWs, said they are definitely seeing more distressed overseas Filipino workers from Saudi Arabia.

"We are definitely starting to feel it. We are hearing about OFWs not getting paid, their status as foreign workers is in jeopardy," it said.

The center suspects these OFWs, having lapsed or expired working permits, are afraid to travel to the embassy to get help, which means it is up to government to find and aid them.

"Our labor attaches, welfare officers, should go out to the communities to get a better feel of what is going on. The status of these OFWs are uncertain, so it is likely they can't travel out of fear of being arrested."