TO AVOID ‘INCALCULABLE JEOPARDY’: Two-week moratorium on repatriations pushed

By Dolly Yasa

 

Bacolod City – Mayor Evelio Leonardia appealed to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to impose a two-week moratorium on the return of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) here so as not to expose the safety of the whole city to what he claimed as “incalculable jeopardy”.

Leonardia said Councilor Renecito Novero, chair of the Quarantine Centers Action Team, suggested the moratorium as he warned of the dangers to the general community in case local hotels and quarantine facilities cannot accommodate the influx of OFWs.

“This will provide enough breathing space for everyone and for everything involved in this arduous task of quarantine measures,” Leonardia said in his August 3, 2020 letter to OWWA administrator Hans Leo Cacdac.

“The uncontrolled number and the indiscriminate frequency of OFWs returning to our City will possibly exceed the available hotel facilities without warning and injudiciously exhaust our local workers. Should this happen, the safety of the whole City will be exposed to incalculable jeopardy,” he added.

The letter was also signed by Novero and Councilor Israel Salanga, chair of the Action Team on Returning OFWs.

Jose Roberto Nuñez, regional director of Office of Civil Defense-6, and chair of the Regional Inter-Agency Task Force (RIATF) was also furnished a copy.

Earlier, Leonardia also wrote to Health Secretary Francisco Duque, chair of the National IATF against COVID-19, and his co-chair Cabinet Secretary Karlo Alexei Nograles on July 13, 2020 appealing for controlled number of passengers when commercial flights and sea travel resume.

Leonardia had requested the National Task Force (NTF) to “issue a guideline that limits flights and ferry trips to a combined total of 600 passengers per week.”

The mayor also asked the NTF to “instruct the airline and shipping companies to coordinate with us (City Mayor’s Office) and secure our permission at least two days before any scheduled flight or ferry trip.”

“(This) will enable us to determine if we will have available quarantine facilities for the returnees and prepare for their arrival,” the mayor explained.

“At least by this scheme, what is not an easy job will become less difficult to manage,” he added.