303 OFWs from Diego Garcia arrive in Subic Freeport

Overseas Filipino workers from Diego Garcia, an island military outpost in the Indian Ocean, arrive Dec. 13 at the Subic Bay International Airport under the government’s OFW repatriation program. (Photo courtesy of SBMA)

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT––A total of 303 Filipino overseas workers (OFWs) from Diego Garcia, an island military outpost in the Indian Ocean, arrived Monday, Dec. 13, in this free port.

In a statement, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chair and Administrator Wilma Eisma said it was part of the expanded “Bayanihan” flights by the Philippine Airlines aimed at bringing home more OFWs in time for the holidays.

Oscar Ebalan, an OFW from Masinloc, Zambales, arrived with his son Aldean, also a contract worker employed by KBR Diego Garcia LLC, a military contractor, that provides operations, maintenance, and logistics services on the island.

Ebalan said the OFW flight from Diego Garcia to Subic took more than seven hours, with no stopover.

“But we arrived safe and okay, and the arrival procedures at Subic went smoothly,” he said, adding that they expected to be home after the mandatory quarantine and the requisite reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test five days upon arrival in this freeport.

The OFW flights via the Subic Bay International Airport started last July under the government’s repatriation program to assist Filipinos stranded abroad because of the pandemic.

“With this, Subic is now connected to 10 cities and major destinations in the Indo-Pacific area. We are now the gateway for OFWs coming from the Middle East, as well as Asian ports,” said Eisma.

The areas with PAL connections to Subic include Riyadh and Dammam in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Doha in Qatar, Macau, Palau, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and now Diego Garcia.

Eisma said they were expecting more OFW flights via Subic before the year-end.

None of these flights would come from countries that the Philippine government had placed on its red list given the emergence of the highly transmissible COVID-19 Omicron variant, she added.