16 UPLB students barred from returning to home towns in Bataan

SAN PEDRO CITY –– A University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) bus, carrying 16 students earlier trapped in Laguna due to the enhanced community quarantine, was barred from entering the students’ home province, Bataan, on Thursday.

Rocky Marcelino, head of the UPLB Office of Student Affairs, which is in charge of the Oplan Hatid program, said the bus was stopped at a checkpoint between Barangay Balsik in Hermosa and Dinalupihan in Bataan.

The students were being held there since they arrived at noon from Los Baños, with the parents of some of them already at the other side of the checkpoint waiting for their children.

The UPLB bus was supposed to drop off the students at the municipal halls of their respective hometowns, where their families were supposed to pick them up.

Bataan was locked down to contain the spread of SARS-CoV2 that causes the coronavirus disease.

But Marcelino said UPLB and the Philippine Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, its program partner, had prior coordination with the local government of Bataan for Thursday’s trip.

“We are disheartened. We were told they were going to allow (returning) OFWs (overseas Filipino workers), which is just the same as these students, who are safer because they just stayed within the campus,” he said.

Aside from that, the university conducts health assessments on students, in compliance with the Department of Health protocol, at least 15 minutes before leaving the campus.

Marcelino said returning UPLB students are automatically considered persons under monitoring and would undergo a 14-day home quarantine.

Since the Luzon quarantine, hundreds of UPLB students were stranded in dormitories and apartments near the campus.

The Oplan Hatid program, which is meant to help reunite the students with their families, has brought home 360 students so far to various parts of Luzon.

At least 300 more from Visayas and Mindanao are left on their campuses due to flight cancelations.

Edited by LZB