SAN JOSE, Antique – Over 200 sacadas or sugar migrant workers in Antique will leave for Negros Occidental on Sept. 10. The sugar milling season is expected to start in the second week of the said month.
Antique Sacada Desk in- charge Randy Ardeño said five contractors are processing the documents of the workers in preparation for their transport.
These included their registration with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Safe, Swift and Smart Passage (S-PaSS) online travel management system, membership with the Social Security System (SSS), and identification cards.
The sacadas will also undergo reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test before they will be brought to the seaport in Dumangas, Iloilo to board a vessel going to Negros Occidental.
The cost of the swab test will be shouldered by sugar planters who contracted their services.
Ardeño said the more than 200 sacadas are just an initial deployment; there will be succeeding batches to work in Negros Occidental.
“For other contractors, they are being advised to coordinate with the Sacada Desk so we could already process the IDs of the sacadas and their S-Pass,” he said.
Last year 2,232 Antique sacadas were hired by 63 contractors during the milling season.
The Antique provincial government created a system for the legal deployment of sacadas last year at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. (PNA)
