BACOLOD CITY—At least 265 Filipino workers coming home to Negros Occidental from their jobs overseas are pleading for help for extraction from different parts of the country where they had been stuck as a result of travel restrictions and local border closures meant to stop COVID-19 transmission.
Rayfrando Diaz, Negros Occidential provincial administrator, said most of the stranded Negrenses were seafarers and construction workers who can’t travel to their homes because of lockdowns.
According to provincial government records, 90 of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were stranded in Cebu City while 84 others are stuck in Metro Manila.
The OFWs, some of whom had been on board cruise ships, however, claimed that there were more than 200 of them who were stranded in Metro Manila.
Diaz said there are also 91 construction workers from Negros Occidental who were stranded in Cebu, Iloilo, Palawan and Lanao del Norte.
He said Negros Occidental officials were working hard to bring the stranded Negrenses back home.
Diaz said the provincial government will quarantine the returning Negrenses at the Yolanda housing village in EB Magalona town or the Mambukal Resort in Murcia town to ensure that they are COVID-19-free when they return to their communities.
Ella Remolleno, of Talisay City, Negros Occidental, said her husband, Alex, and other seamen from Singapore, arrived in Metro Manila on March 16.
Many of the OFWs returned to the Philippines with money for their families. But they were forced to spend it for board and lodging while stranded in Manila.
Stranded Negrenses who are seeking the provincial government’s help may contact 09657996571, 09561301214 and 09615592054, said Charina Magallanes-Tan, Negros Occidental COVID-19 Incident Command Center spokesperson.
Local officials had placed Negros Occidental and Bacolod City on a lockdown which stopped sea and air travel to and from the province to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The travel restriction was supposed to end on April 14 but was extended to April 30.