ILOILO City – Not 446 as previously announced but 991 locally stranded individual (LSIs) returned to Western Visayas yesterday from Metro Manila ferried by ship MV St. Michael the Archangel.
Their return is feared to further jack up the region’s cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which yesterday were at 1,158 with 16 deaths. Seventeen new cases were recorded, half of them LSIs.
Data from the Regional Incident Management Team (RIMT) showed 537 of the newly-returned LSIs were residents of Panay and Guimaras islands while 454 were residents of Negros Island.
The ship transporting them left the port of Manila on Monday afternoon, July 27, and dropped by this city around noon yesterday before proceeding to Bacolod City.
Here’s the breakdown of the 991 LSIs:
* Aklan – 14
* Antique – 71
* Capiz – 78
* Guimaras – 12
* Iloilo province – 304
* Iloilo City – 58
* Negros Occidental – 382
* Bacolod City – 64
* Negros Oriental – 7
* Zambonga – 1 (disembarked in Bacolod City to be fetched by his local government)
From Fort San Pedro, the LSIs were fetched by ambulances sent by their respective local government units (LGUs) and taken to their localities’ quarantine facilities for swabbing.
Those who would test negative for COVID-19 would be allowed to go home even before their 14-day quarantine ends.
As of yesterday, the Department of Health in Western Visayas reported the region to have the following number of COVID-19 cases: Aklan, six; Antique, 16; Capiz, seven; Guimaras, one; Iloilo province, 85; Negros Occidental, 46; Bacolod City, 82; Iloilo City, 73; repatriates, 842.
In an advisory released on July 25, Director Jose Roberto Nuñez of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) Region 6 urged provincial governors, city and municipal mayors to prepare for the return of many LSIs.
Yesterday’s batch of LSIs managed to return to the region under the Hatid Tulong Program of the Presidential Management Staff. It is a short-term humanitarian effort to assist residents stranded in Metro Manila due to quarantine travel restrictions.
As of 9:46 a.m. yesterday, 29,269 LSIs and 8,620 repatriated overseas Filipinos (ROFs) have returned to Region 6 since April broken down as follows:
* for LSIs: Iloilo City – 1,066; Bacolod City – 1,066; Aklan – 3,879; Antique – 7,816; Capiz – 5,086; Guimaras – 479; Iloilo – 4,316; and Negros Occidental – 5,561
* for ROFs: Iloilo City – 1,147; Bacolod City – 1,335; Aklan – 1,147; Antique – 880; Capiz – 1,285; Guimaras – 361; Iloilo province – 1,885; and Negros Occidental – 580
For the return of the LSIs, the RIMT was activated with the following tasks:
* ensure the safety of responders that would be mobilized and the general public
* facilitate the availability of quarantine/isolation facilities among local government units
* facilitate the smooth disembarkation of LSIs
* ensure the availability of transportation for LSIs in coordination with receiving local governments
* facilitate activation of camp management in the quarantine facility/PN
