PH embassy in India helps stranded Filipinos

The embassy has coordinated with the Department of National Defense in ferrying some of these Filipinos via a Philippine ship off the coast of Oman. (File Photo By Patrick Roque, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

MANILA – The Philippine embassy in New Delhi on Wednesday said some 160 Filipinos have been repatriated and more are coming home soon.

In a Laging Handa briefing, Ambassador Ramon Bagatsing Jr. said the embassy is assisting over 100 Filipino seafarers stranded in Mumbai.

The embassy has coordinated with the Department of National Defense in ferrying some of these Filipinos via a Philippine ship off the coast of Oman.

“Napakiusapan natin si Secretary (Delfin) Lorenzana… dahil may isa tayong barko na nasa Oman, napakiusapan natin na pag-uwi sa Pilipinas dumaan sa India and kumuha ng pasahero na stranded (We asked Secretary Lorenzana to allow our ship in Oman to pass by India to fetch stranded Filipinos),” he said.

Meanwhile, Bagatsing said no Filipino was diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in India.

“We don’t have any Filipino here who contracted Covid. Right now, hopefully the lockdown will be eased and that there will be flights soon,” he said.

Apart from repatriation requests, the embassy attends to consular concerns and, once in a while, mediate on “domestic issues” like spat between Filipinos and their spouses.

“In so far as the Filipino community here is concerned, (there’s) no major problem at all and as a matter of fact, they have been helping the embassy in so many things,” he said.

Most of the 3,000 Filipinos there are spouses of Indians or workers in the construction and tech industries.