Some 207 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), all residents of Negros Island, were brought home by two Philippine Airlines sweeper flights from Manila on Monday night.
Landing at Bacolod-Silay Airport in Silay City, the first flight, which arrived around 6:30 p.m., carried 63 from Bacolod City, 91 from Negros Occidental, and seven from Negros Oriental.
The second flight, which came in at past 11 p.m., carried 15 passengers from Bacolod City, 26 from Negros Occidental, and five more from Negros Oriental.
The two flights arrived after a memorandum issued by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Monday stated that from May 25 to 27, more than 24,000 OFWs in Metro Manila, who come from various regions, will be transported at an estimate of 8,000 persons per day to different provinces and cities.
This was in response to President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to send back all the OFWs stuck in quarantine centers in Metro Manila to their respective homes within a week.
Negros Occidental provincial government is doing its best to accommodate all the arriving OFWs to implement the President’s order, Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said in a press conference at the Capitol Social Hall on Tuesday.
“We just want to make sure that when they come here, there are enough facilities to accommodate them,” Lacson said.
The OFWs from Negros Occidental, who arrived on Monday night, were brought to a hotel in this city while those from Negros Oriental have been picked up and transported to the neighboring province.
Those from Bacolod were ferried to the quarantine centers managed by the city government.
On Monday alone, three batches of OFWs arrived in the city and the province, including the group of 228 from Bacolod City and Negros Occidental, who arrived aboard 2GO Group’s M/V St. Therese of the Child Jesus at Bredco port here in the morning. (Nanette Guadalquiver ndb via pna)