Stranded Pinoys urged to contact embassies to join flight home

MANILA – Filipinos stranded abroad due to travel restrictions amid threats of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus are urged to contact the nearest Philippine Embassy or Consulates to join the earliest flight to Manila.

Based on the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) latest monitoring, about 50 Filipinos in Europe and 49 others in South Africa were stranded since the announcement of countries included in the red list.

“(T)his is a little bit complicated so we need the cooperation of our kababayans because they have to transfer from one country to another to be able to join the repatriation flight,” Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola said in a Laging Handa briefing.

“Most of these are Bayanihan special repatriation flights. Dahil hindi po ganoon karami, sasakay po tayo sa commercial flights na to be termed as Bayanihan (because the number is small, they would have to board a commercial flight to be termed as Bayanihan).”

Arriola said two of its posts in Europe are in talks with a Dutch airline company to facilitate a “Bayanihan flight” for December 13 with the Netherlands as the possible transit point.

South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy had been placed under the country’s red list.

Countries on the red list are deemed coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) high-risk areas and travelers from these countries are temporarily barred from entering the Philippines.

Except for Filipinos returning via special repatriation and “Bayanihan flights”, all inbound international travelers from these nations are barred from entering the Philippines.