Some 417 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and locally stranded individuals (LSIs) arrived here aboard separate sweeper flights from Manila in the past two days.
They were transported on three planes that landed at the Bacolod-Silay Airport in Silay City.
At about 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, an Air Asia flight brought home 71 OFWs, who are residents of various cities and towns in Negros Occidental, and 39 others from Bacolod City.
Before midnight on Tuesday, a total of 159 OFWs flew in aboard a Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight.
The group included 104 persons, including three children, from Negros Occidental, as well as 55 others from Bacolod.
Also on Tuesday afternoon, a PAL flight brought home 14 OFWs and stranded residents of Negros Occidental, and also 134 Bacolodnons, who were all LSIs in Metro Manila.
All the OFWs from Negros Occidental have been directly accommodated in hotels while some were initially brought to the Provincial Healing Center in EB Magalona town and then transferred to hotels.
In Bacolod, all the returning OFWs are now staying in hotels, pensions, or tourist inns while the LSIs have settled in various school-based quarantine facilities to undergo a 14-day mandatory quarantine.
As part of the local government health protocols, all the OFWs and LSIs who have returned to Negros Occidental and Bacolod City undergo the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test while under quarantine and must test negative for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) before they are allowed to go home.
Bacolod City Councilor Cindy Rojas, chair of the action team on non-OFW returning residents, said she was thankful that after the hardships and difficulties, the LSIs in Metro Manila were finally able to return to Bacolod.
“We are trying to work out their return on a first-come, first-served basis since we cannot let them return all at once because we cannot accommodate them all in our quarantine centers,” Rojas said.
Among the LSIs from Manila were 36 students and volunteers of the University of St. La Salle, who are being quarantined at the Balay Kalinungan inside the campus. (Nanette Guadalquiver ndb via pna)