MANILA, Philippines – The planned mandatory repatriation of Filipinos in West Africa has been put on hold following the Department of Health’s (DOH) statement that no special screening procedure will be applied to the peacekeepers and any OFWs returning to the Philippines.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a previous statement that they are “preparing for the mandatory repatriation” of Filipinos in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea due to the continued threat of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
“We will need to re-assess especially given the new position of DOH, we will check if it is accurate, and then we will have a new round of consultations with concerned agencies,” DFA spokesman Charles Jose said in a press briefing Monday.
“We also received feedback from the Filipinos there who said they will have problems with their work because they won’t be able to return once they are repatriated,” Jose said. “We are weighing those considerations.”
Mandatory repatriation is implemented under Crisis Alert Level 4 along with a total deployment ban of all overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The West African countries with Ebola outbreak are currently under Crisis Alert Level 2 or restriction phase under which new hires are not allowed to be deployed to the region.
The Philippines is definite in pulling out the 148-strong military contingent serving as United Nations peacekeepers in Liberia, Jose said.
“That has been decided long ago,” he said.
Currently, as many as 1,979 Filipinos are in Sierra Leone, 880 in Guinea and 632 in Liberia, including the 148 Filipino peacekeepers.
Lyndon Lee Suy, the program manager of Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases, National Center for Disease Prevention and Control of the DOH, said that special screenings will not be conducted at the airport for arriving Filipinos from West Africa.
“There is nothing to be alarmed with because the peacekeepers did not immerse with those infected with the Ebola virus. And also, before the Filipinos leave the foreign countries, their condition have already been monitored there, thus they are already filtered when arriving in the country,” he was quoted as saying in a report.
“Whether there is an Ebola [outbreak] or none, the same [screening] procedures will apply [at the airport,]” he said.
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