ILOILO City – One hundred fifty-six overseas Ilonggo workers returned here before dawn yesterday.
But because the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) did not coordinate with the city government, the initial hours of these repatriated overseas workers were difficult.
With no ready quarantine facilities, OWWA dumped these repatriates at the La Paz district public plaza and the Iloilo City Freedom Grandstand after fetching them at the Iloilo Airport in Cabatuan, Iloilo around 2 a.m.
Informed of these people’s sorry plight, Mayor Jerry Treñas immediately ordered the preparation of Baluarte Elementary School to house them.
“We cannot allow these overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to suffer while we watch,” according to Treñas.
The city government made available to them 200 beds at Baluarte Elementary School and Rizal Elementary School.
“The flight facilitated by OWWA was not coordinated with me but we will help the agency in whatever capacity we have,” said Treñas.
The repatriated OFWs are required to undergo 14 days of quarantine and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test to determine if they are infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019.
Treñas said he already asked Dr. Joseph Dean Nicolo, chief of the Western Visayas Medical Center, to facilitate the speedy release of test results from the hospital’s sub-national laboratory.
Those who test negative for COVID-19 would be immediately allowed to go home so that the city’s packed quarantine facilities and hotels would be decongested and be able to accommodate more repatriated OFWs.
Treñas also reiterated yesterday that the city would be receiving returning locally stranded individuals (LSIs).
But their return should be coordinated with the city government to ensure their smooth accommodation, he stressed.
As of Aug. 20, 33,955 LSIs have returned to Region 6 since March and of these, Iloilo City accounted for 1,130, data from the Regional Incident Management Team for LSIs of the Western Visayas Regional Task Force on COVID-19 showed.
According to task force chief Regional Director Jose Roberto Nuñez of the Office of Civil Defense, these LSIs were mostly from Metro Manila, Cebu and Palawan.
The province of Antique had the most number – so far – of LSIs at 8,970 followed by Negros Occidental (6,620), Capiz (5,811), Iloilo province (4,699), Aklan (4,473), Bacolod City (1,745), and Guimaras (507)./PN
