Returning residents stranded in ‘tent village’

MOTHER AND SON Rebecca Pascua, 70, and her son Aldin, 50, were stopped by checkpoint guards on their way to visit a family member in Malasiqui town in Pangasinan province and have been held for a month now at the boundary of Pangasinan and Tarlac provinces. —YOLANDA SOTELO

ROSALES, Pangasinan, Philippines — With mixed emotions, Edward Pillos, 40, on Saturday bid goodbye to his companions in an open field of this town at the Pangasinan-Tarlac border, where they pitched tents as shelters after they were barred from their journey home due to the enhanced community quarantine.

Pillos, a construction worker, said he felt sad to leave the tent community and those stranded but was excited to finally reunite with his family in Sta. Lucia, Ilocos Sur province, after more than a month.

His wife managed to get the necessary papers so he could return home with the help of the local government of Sta. Lucia, which sent a vehicle to fetch him at the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) exit in Pozorrubio town, also in Pangasinan.

Open field

Pillos left Bulacan province on April 9 on his motorcycle after his brother, who asked him to help build a house, ran out of materials. While heading home, he was flagged down at a checkpoint in the Pangasinan-Tarlac border.

He was among the more than 50 people who were refused entry into Pangasinan due to the border closure.

With nowhere to go, Pillos and the other travelers were forced to spend the next five weeks in an open field near a farm. They stayed at makeshift tents to protect them from the intense heat of the sun and occasional rain.

Pillos was the 47th person stranded at the border who was sent home. He had to undergo testing for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) before health officials allowed him to enter the province or to pass through the border.

Another construction worker, Victorino Vinluan, 37, was barred from entering Pangasinan, after his Korean employer in Angeles City sent him and five others home.

“We had been walking for three hours and were already at Carmen in Rosales when policemen saw us and brought us to the tent village,” Vinluan told the Inquirer.

A native of Quirino province, Vinluan said he had been living with his cousins in Binalonan town in Pangasinan for four years and wanted to go back there.

The local government of Binalonan had told him to stay in the tent village until the lifting of the quarantine possibly on May 15. “I’ve been here for 37 days so what’s more days of waiting?” he said.