MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte said imposing a travel ban on all tourists coming from mainland China might be difficult to undertake, despite the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak that originated in the East Asian nation.
“Mahirap ‘yang ano, sabihin mong you suspend everything because they are not also suspending theirs and they continue to respect the freedom flights that we enjoy,” Duterte said on Thursday.
The President, however, insisted the government is ready to repatriate Filipinos in Wuhan – the Chinese city which sits at the center of the outbreak – should they seek to come home to the Philippines.
“We are always conscious of our citizens
their health and if they are going home, we are ready to ferry them back to the Philippines but all precautions must be in place,” he added.
Duterte said he will leave the precautionary measures to the proper authorities as the Department of Foreign Affairs readied two charter planes to fetch Filipinos in Wuhan once they get the go signal from Chinese officials.
Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque, for his part, was also reluctant to recommend banning Chinese nationals from entering the country as China might question why we are not imposing the same restriction on other countries infected with the virus.
“If we do this, then the concerned country – China in this case – might question why we’re not doing the same for other countries that have reported confirmed cases of novel coronavirus,” said Duque during a question hour at the House of Representatives.
Duque added the DOH has intensified surveillance on travelers who may have symptoms of the virus as they are now strictly monitoring not just visitors from Wuhan but from the entire Hubei province, where they city is located.
“As I have said, we have scaled up, we have leveled up border surveillance. Our quarantine officers are well equipped,” he added.
Over 6,000 cases of the novel coronavirus have been recorded in 18 countries, namely, mainland China, Hong Kong, MaDutretcao, Australia, Cambodia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Taiwan, the United States and Vietnam.
Duque said there are still no confirmed cases yet in the Philippines but they are waiting for test results from a reference laboratory in Australia on samples from suspected patients. He added that there are 23 people under investigation for the virus across the country./PN
