OWWA appeals for OFWs’ understanding over quarantine rules

FILE: Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac and OWWA officers welcome distressed Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who were repatriated from Kuwait through Philippine Airlines (PR) 669 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 in Pasay City on Monday morning. (Feb. 12, 2018). (PNA photo by Avito Dalan)

MANILA – The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) on Thursday appealed for understanding of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are currently in quarantine facilities and are longing to go home to their loved ones.

“OWWA wishes you can go home to your families soon, but we have rules to follow to ensure the pain caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) will not get into your homes,” the agency said in a statement.

Pursuant to IATF-EID Resolutions 26 and 29 and DOH Memorandum Order No.

0200-2020, OFWs need to complete a 14-day mandatory quarantine and two negative in RT-PCR Covid-19 swab test results before he is allowed to go home to his family.

The OWWA is also monitoring 110 quarantine facilities in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces, where more than 9,000 OFWs are temporarily staying.

The agency also assured that there will soon be a mass testing among OFWs to be headed by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and that additional swabbing centers will be operational in the coming days.

“It is also possible for us to prepare additional buses to deliver you to and from swabbing centers,” it added.

Once the swab test results are negative, which are expected to be released after three to four days, the OFW will be given two certificates — certificate of completion of 14-day quarantine from OWWA and certificate of negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test results from PCG.