Quarantined migrant workers sent home on time for Duterte's deadline
MANILA, Philippines — Meeting President Duterte’s deadline, the labor department successfully brought home 25,022 overseas Filipino workers from government quarantine sites where they had been stuck for coronavirus testing.
Of the migrant workers sent home, 10,161 were flew back to their provinces, 7,900 were transported by buses, while 385 were ferried to their hometowns, the agency said in a statement on Monday. The balance of 6,566, meanwhile, were fetched by their relatives.
Included in the tally were around 8,000 seafarers who were stranded in 26 cruise ships in Manila Bay. Another 200 remain on board pending the results of their coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) tests.
The total number of OFWs sent home was more than the 24,000 initially estimated to have been overstaying in isolation hubs, some by a month and a half, while awaiting government clearances that show they are not infected and may safely go home.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) completed the dispatch of migrant workers on Monday just in time to meet the president’s “ultimatum” to bring OFWs safely home in one week.
Since April, migrant workers coming home were required to undergo COVID-19 testing, a precautionary measure meant to deter possible imported cases of the disease that may spread locally.
Last Friday, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III apologized for the “inconvenience” OFWs suffered for the delayed release of their clearances even as test results appeared to have been available mere days after they were tested.
Another 42,000 workers displaced by the pandemic are expected to return until July and will undergo the same screening, although Bello assured the public that this time, the process will be faster. — Prinz Magtulis
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