BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Six sacadas or sugar migrant workers have now contracted the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
The Provincial Incident Management Team (PIMT) of Negros Occidental recorded two new infected sacadas from Antique on Wednesday.
These additional cases belonged to the second batch of 110 laborers who arrived in the province on Oct. 12, said Dr. Zeaphard Caelian, head of PIMT.
They will supposedly work in sugar farms in the towns of Binalbagan, Isabela, La Castellana, and in the city of La Carlota.
According to Caelian, around 600 sacadas already had their specimens collected for laboratory analysis.
While waiting for their results, they were quarantined in the sugar farms where they will work.
“They will only be allowed to work when they test negative for the disease,” said Caellian.
A total of 5,000 sacadas from Antique are expected to arrive in Negros Occidental as the sugar milling season opens.
Upon their arrival at the Bredco port in Bacolod City, the migrant workers would undergo swabbing then transported to their quarantine quarters.
“We place them on quarantine, and isolated from one another,” Caelian said.
Earlier, a total of 300 sacadas belonging to the first batch arrived in the province on Oct. 9 – four of them tested positive for COVID-19.
The sacadas work mostly as cane cutters in the vast sugar plantations in Negros Occidental – the “Sugar Capital” of the Philippines./PN
