OFWs exempted from travel ban on new COVID-19 variant-hit countries

(FILE) Repatriated Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs arrive at an airport after being allowed to go home following weeks of quarantine amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez

MANILA, Philippines — Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in countries hit by the new variant of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) will still be allowed to come home, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said Tuesday.

“They will be allowed to come home pero they have to be subjected to the 14-day quarantine. Kahit na pagdating nila, na-swab sila, negative sila, they still have to undergo the 14-day quarantine,” DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in an online press conference.

(They will be allowed to come home pero they have to be subjected to the 14-day quarantine. When they arrive here, and they get swabbed and the result is negative, they would still have to undergo the 14-day quarantine.)

“You can come home for the holidays, for the New Year, upon the strict order of our President,” he added.

Bello also said that OFWs who have already been vaccinated against COVID-19 will still have to undergo the mandatory quarantine.

The new COVID-19 variant, which is said to be more infectious, emerged from the United Kingdom (UK).

The Philippines initially imposed a travel ban on flights from the UK to prevent possible transmission.

On Tuesday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to impose a travel ban from Dec. 30 to Jan. 15 on 20 countries with the COVID-19 variant found in the UK.

At least 60,000 to 100,000 OFWs are expected to come home from these countries, according to Bello.

“Marami sa ating mga kababayan ang tinamaan,” the labor chief said.

(A lot of our fellow Filipinos were displaced by the pandemic.)

As of Dec. 29, Bello said over 388,000 displaced OFWs have been repatriated to the Philippines since the start of the pandemic.

/MUF