THE Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has created a new sub-technical working group (TWG) to handle the welfare of the hundreds of returning overseas Filipino workers (OFW) amid the prevailing enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon.
In an online press briefing on Thursday, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said the sub-TWG will be composed of the Departments of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Tourism (DOT), Transportation (DOTr), Foreign Affairs (DFA), Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Health (DOH).
He said the IATF directed the subgroup “to convene to formulate guidelines to manage and ensure the welfare” of repatriated OFWs.
The Bureau of Quarantine was also tasked by the IATF “to update the existing algorithm for the triage of patients with possible Covid-19 infections,” which will apply to repatriated land-based OFWs, who will go through ports of entry.
The IATF formed the OFW-focused sub-TWG amid reports that some local government units (LGU) are refusing to provide accommodation to the repatriated OFWs out of fear they may be infected by Covid-19.
Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) President Raymond Mendoza lambasted these LGUs for their harsh treatment of returning OFWs.
“We are alarmed that OFWs are wandering in a new diaspora because they either cannot be deployed or worse, they cannot come home to their respective LGUs because of a lack of coordination among concerned agencies and the LGUs,” Mendoza said in a statement.
He said addressing the matter will be crucial, especially since the Department of Health (DOH) has announced that 6,378 seafarers are expected to be repatriated in the next two weeks.
Nograles said the IATF has “strongly enjoined” all LGUs to “allow the unhampered transit of OFWs who have been issued DOH or LGUs certificate of completion of 14-day facility-based quarantine or those who may be required by the DOH or LGUs to undergo a mandatory 14-day home quarantine.”