OWWA chief defends Mocha Uson for visiting quarantined OFWs in Batangas

MANILA, Philippines — Hans Leo Cacdac, the administrator of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWAA), defended on Wednesday Deputy Administrator Mocha Uson for gathering overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were quarantined in a resort in Matabungkay in Lian, Batangas.

In an interview aired over AM radio station DZBB, Cacdac said he was the one who asked Uson to visit the 332 OFWs quarantined at the resort.

He said OWWA had received a report that one of the OFWs who waded in the water along the beach, which was against the enhanced community quarantine guidelines set by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).

“So I asked Deputy Administrator Mocha to go there. I said: Check on them and remind them [of the rules]. So when she arrived there, she told them to observe the 14-day quarantine,” Cacdac said in Filipino.

Uson “had the best of intentions” and “carried out the message” during her visit, he added.

Uson drew flak for that visit, which she later tried to justify.

The whole of Luzon, where Batangas is, has been under quarantine since mid-March, and President Rodrigo Duterte moved the end of the quarantine from April 30 to May 15.

According to Cacdac, Uson plays a “very important role” during the pandemic as she does community outreach work in quarantine facilities.

Cacdac said, however, that OWWA would look into the matter when COVID-19 crisis had ended.

“For me, it still deserves looking into. So we will look into this. But we must let this crisis pass because I need all my people,” he said.

“She’s a deputy administrator. I need her for the community outreach. And, for instance, she can bring food to stranded seafarers. So things like that. We cannot dismiss the kind of service that she gives,” he added.

/atm