THE Covid-19 pandemic is still taking its toll on the economy in Macau, Thailand and Vietnam, and hundreds of Filipino workers there still cannot find work and have opted to repatriated to the Philippines.
A total of 398 Filipinos were repatriated from Macau, Thailand and Vietnam last Friday, mostly OFWs laid off by their employers as a result of the pandemic.
In Macau, the Philippine Consulate General conducted its 29th repatriation on March 25. The chartered flight carried 203 Filipinos; three as cadavers, having died of non-Covid related causes.
Macau has been practically Covid-19 free, with only 82 infections since the pandemic began in 2020 and 95 percent of its population vaccinated, but China imposed very strict lockdowns in the mainland and its territory, and still aims for zero Covid-19 incidence. Thus, casinos which rely mostly on foreign tourists had to shut down or reduce operations.
Since 2020, the Consulate General has already repatriated 5,781 Filipinos in Macau.
“The Philippine Consulate General will continue organizing similar flights until the Macau Government has declared it safe to allow international commercial flights to operate again,” the DFA said in a statement.
Those still in Macau and want to be repatriated may fill up this e-form https://tinyurl.com/repatMacau.
Labor Attaché, Ma. Nena G. German and Welfare Officer Zosima Maria P. Santos also distributed hygiene kits to women who joined the repatriation flight.
Meanwhile, the DFA has also arranged a chartered flight for Filipino workers in Thailand and Vietnam last Thursday.
There were 53 overseas Filipinos, mostly working in Thailand’s education and tourism industry but who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. They would have wanted to stay but they were “facing difficulties in supporting themselves while looking for new employment.”
The latest repatriation flight brings the total number of repatriates from Thailand to 808 since the Embassy’s first repatriation flight in April 2020. The Embassy also facilitated commercial airlines’ applications with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging and Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) for special flight permits and additional seat allocations to accommodate distressed Filipino travelers over the last two years of the pandemic.
Aside from the OFWs, infants, children of OFWs and those with medical conditions were also included among the repatriates.
From Bangkok, the chartered plane flew to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, were an additional 142 overseas Filipinos joined the flight to Manila.
Cases of Covid-19 in Thailand and Vietnam have been relatively high these past two weeks, after dropping their zero Covid-19 policies that severely impacted their economy.
The recent surge is attributed to the Omicron variant. On Friday, Thailand reported 26,050 confirmed new cases and 69 more Covid-19 fatalities. Vietnam, on one hand, recorded an average of 130,146 cases per day for the past 7 days, with 51 Covid deaths.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes