Passengers of flight from South Korea complain of ‘unlivable’ quarantine facility
MANILA, Philippines — Filipino passengers of a flight from South Korea complained on Wednesday that the hotel in Tagaytay City where they were undergoing the mandatory 14-day quarantine was untidy and had a stench that made it unlivable.
One passenger told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview that the situation was so unbearable that they just opted to stay outside the hotel where the buses are parked.
The passenger, who requested not to be identified, said they arrived in Manila at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday and were informed that they should cancel any hotel reservations they had made as the government would provide them with accommodations.
The passengers were then shuttled to a hotel in Tagaytay for quarantine. They soon discovered, however, that the bathrooms, toilets, and even the beds were dirty.
The passenger said they thought they would be staying at the hotel for three days.
“Then they said 14 days and the government would pay for the hotel [expenses]. So we canceled all our bookings,” the passenger said in Filipino. “We waited because they said there two hotels to choose from. We expected the place where we would stay to be in order because, of course, we were tired from the trip.”
After undergoing swab testing and waiting for the buses, they proceeded to the hotel. Some passsengers who went ahead inside the hotel complained and refused to stay.
“I looked at the building and I thought it looked okay. There a building out front. Then we learned that the one behind was where we would stay — as in it looked like an abandoned place,” the passenger said.
“Even outside going down to the lobby and then rooms, there was already the smell of the beds, maybe because they had not been used for a long time. Then the CR [comfort room] was so dirty you could not even urinate. There’s water, but it’s not so strong,” the passenger added.
INQUIRER.net sought the side of the Department of Health on the issue but had not received a reply as of this writing.
The government has enforced stricter health protocols with the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant that is reportedly more contagious.
READ: Philippines expands travel ban to 19 more countries amid new COVID-19 variant threat
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