ARRIVING overseas Filipino workers (OFW) should also be among those enjoying shorter quarantine periods, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III issued the statement amid a proposal in the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to reduce the quarantine period for investors.
The call to give OFWs a similar consideration was aired by several senators on Tuesday as the Senate Committee of the Whole called another hearing on the national vaccination program. Reacting to a detailed narration of the OFWs’ complaints as made by migrant workers’ advocate Susan “Toots” Ople, Senate President Vicente Sotto III himself said he had received many reports from the OFWs, many of whom, he said, rushed home not just for leirsure but for urgent business. To use up all their scarce vacation time for quarantine is unjust, he said.
“There are moves, to require fewer days in quarantine. If you can do that with investors, it should also apply for OFWs due to their big investment, which are worth billions, to our economy,” Bello said during an online press briefing on Wednesday.
He explained the current seven-day rule before inbound travelers can be tested for Covid-19 is, as it is, already too taxing for OFWs, who have limited time to stay in the country.
Under such scheme, he said OFWs could spend as long as 10 days in government quarantine facilities. Bello said he is proposing to restore the previous protocol, wherein OFWs will be immediately tested upon their arrival.
“Once they test negative [for Covid-19], then they could be allowed to go home,” Bello said.
To recall, this was the same scheme implemented by the provincial government of Cebu before no less than President Duterte ordered it to comply with the seven-day rule policy of the IATF.
Bello said he is confident the IATF will consider his proposal, especially due to the reported low infection rate among OFWs.
“Of the 580,000 OFWs, who were repatriated, less than 1 percent were infected with Covid. So why do we attribute the spread of the virus to our OFW?” Bello said.
Nevertheless, he said he said he will leave the matter to be decided by the IATF during its meeting on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that, despite having been badly hit by the pandemic in their host countries, OFWs sent home $2.3 billion in remittances in April, a 12.7-percent increase over April 2020, and marking the strongest year-on-year growth in almost five years.
The strong April remittance growth pushed the total money sent by Filipino migrant workers in the first four months of the year to $9.9 billion. This is 4.8 percent higher than the $9.4-billion remittance inflows to the country in the same period last year.
January to April remittance level in 2021 also exceeded the pre-pandemic cash remittance flows. In 2019, Filipino migrant workers sent $9.7 billion back home.