BACOLOD City – More overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and locally stranded individuals who are residents of Bacolod City and Negros Occidental have returned home from Metro Manila.
They were part of the second week of arrivals in this province following President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive on May 25 to immediately return all OFWs stuck at coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) quarantine centers in the National Capital Region to their respective homes.
At around 7:35 a.m. on June 3, 38 passengers – 26 Negrenses, 11 Bacolodnons and one LSI – arrived at the Bacolod-Silay Airport in Silay City via an AirAsia sweeper flight.
At the Bredco port here, meanwhile, 16 OFWs from this province and five from this city, along with two LSIs, arrived onboard a 2GO Group vessel at about 8:30 a.m. the same day.
Based on local health protocols, returning residents – whether OFWs or LSIs – are required to undergo mandatory two-week quarantine in patient care centers and subject themselves to reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests for COVID-19.
Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson, meanwhile, said repatriated Negros Occidental OFWs no longer have to complete their 14-day quarantine if they yield negative results for the virus before completing the required number of isolation days.
From May 25 to June 1 alone, this province received 601 returning residents while this city has accommodated some 348 persons who arrived either on sweeper flights or through 2GO Group’s Malasakit Voyage trips.
This June, the first flight arrived at the Bacolod-Silay Airport on Monday morning. It was an AirAsia sweeper flight that carried 12 residents of Bacolod City and 19 from various cities and municipalities in this province.(With a report from PNA/PN)
