17 NegOcc, Bacolod residents repatriated via mercy flight

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – Councilor Cindy Rojas confirmed during the weekend that 15 Bacolodnons and two Negrenses arrived here Saturday through a Philippine Airlines mercy flight arranged by the city government.

Rojas, head of the city’s repatriation committee, said the group was part of the non-Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) stranded in Manila because of the lockdown brought about by the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Last Tuesday, 23 persons arrived at the Bredco port here.

The group was composed of 15 residents of Negros Occidental and 8 University of Philippines-Visayas students.

The group included a doctor who works at a private hospital here and was brought to the South Hills Academy, the quarantine center designated for health workers.

Rojas said the students were not able to go home because the city was already under the general community quarantine when their classes ended.

She said the stranded students stayed in their campus dormitories in Miagao for about six weeks.

The Bacolod students were brought to the Medalla Integrated School here which was turned into a quarantine center.

Residents of the province were brought to the Mambukal Mountain Resort in Murcia town for the mandatory 14-day quarantine.

A swab test was also conducted on the returning Bacolodnon students, Rojas said.

Rojas earlier also said that they will give priority to the Bacolodnons in Manila, who were mostly college students.

She said the city government is also working on the possible repatriation of 25 Bacolodnons from Palawan, and about 120 others stranded in Boracay, Cebu, and Manila.