5 Brigada News workers infected with COVID-19 suffer humiliation, media owner says

KORONADAL CITY –– At least five media workers of the Brigada Group of Companies infected with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) suffered humiliation, the company owner said Tuesday.

Brigada owner Elmer Catulpos said the media workers, who contracted COVID-19, were among the frontliners from their headquarters in nearby General Santos City earlier subjected to the real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing.

In a statement, he assured the company’s help for the workers tested positive for COVID-19, noting that their dignity must be ensured in the face of discrimination even from family members and friends.

Catulpos said the blaming and shaming of infected persons must stop because they did not want to contract the disease in the first place.

“While the pandemic has forced us to be physically apart, it must not prevent us from being emotionally and spiritually close to each other,” said Catulpos, who had reached out to the infected employees in isolation or quarantine.

Catulpos told the affected employees “that everything will turn out well and not to lose hope because Brigada will make it certain they will get the support they need to recover.”

Due to the COVID-19 infection among some of its employees, the media company disinfected its Brigada complex in Barangay San Isidro to prevent the spread of the disease to the rest of the employees.

Catulpos said the company hired a Davao City-based diagnostic firm, which had been serving other companies in General Santos City, to test their frontline media workers for COVID-19.

The five media workers, who tested positive, were in stable condition and had been placed in isolation at a Brigada-owned facility in General Santos City, according to Brigada’s corporate communications team.

The company’s occupational health personnel working with the Rural Health Unit (RHU) of Barangay San Isidro have identified 13 personnel who had direct contact with the company’s COVID-19 patients.

The “direct contact personnel” have been placed on quarantine under the supervision of the RHU in a hotel facility being rented by the company. Their families were also placed on strict home quarantine and close monitoring.

The firm said the four new COVID-19 cases were infected outside company premises, considering the nature of their job of always being on fieldwork.

The first company case reportedly involved someone who was constantly exposed to the police and security frontliners during law enforcement activities.

Since the start of the pandemic, Brigada has adopted a work-from-home scheme among personnel to reduce the number of employees reporting for work in adherence to physical distancing, the firm said.

Catulpos said what happened to Brigada frontliners could also happen to anyone in this time of the pandemic. “(But) we must not allow fear to consume us (because i)f we do, it will only pull us down and make the situation we are in even worse,” Catulpos said.

Work, however, continues in Brigada, which provides jobs to 1,000 men and women nationwide.

All personnel are under strict instructions to adhere to basic safety procedures of wearing face masks, face shields, observe regular hand washing, and frequent use of alcohol, according to the statement.

LZB