The Philippine Center on Fifth Avenue in New York
MANILA, Philippines — Amid a surge of cases in New York, nearly half of the staff members of the Philippine Consulate General there have either contracted or have been exposed to COVID-19.
“Halos kalahati dito sa amin sa konsulado ay either positive or were exposed to those who were positive,” Philippine Consul General in New York Elmer Cato said in a dzMM interview on Thursday.
(Almost half of the staff here in the consulate are either positive or were exposed to those who were positive.)
“May surge dito sa New York ngayon (There’s a surge here in New York],” he added, noting that New York is still under the green risk level.
Last week, the consulate reminded Filipinos in New York to comply with basic COVID-19 safety protocols as local authorities monitor the “prevalence of two new COVID-19 variants.”
“Pero papunta na siya sa yellow stage [But it is reaching the yellow stage]…medium risk ,” Cato said.
Earlier, the consulate announced that it will suspend consular services this week due to the exposure of consular staff to COVID-19.
“As a result napilitan ho kaming isuspend yung consular operations namin [we were forced to suspend consular operations], starting today, up to Friday and we’re hoping everybody would be OK for us to be able to resume our operations by Monday,” Cato went on.
Among those affected by COVID-19 include administrative personnel and consular staff who process passports, visas and notarial documents, as well as the consulate’s drivers.
Despite this, Cato said the consulate is continuing its overseas voting operations.
“In fact, yung nagdala sa balota sa post office kahapon, yung nag-drive, was the deputy consul general himself, so tulong-tulong ho kami rito para lang makasiguro tayo na lahat ng balota ay ma-out na ho natin before the end of the week,” he added.
(In fact, the deputy consul general himself had to drive to the post office yesterday to mail the ballots, so we are helping each other to ensure we will be able to mail out all ballots before the end of the week.)
The consulate has jurisdiction over the northeastern United States.
There are 39,048 individuals in the certified list of registered overseas voters covering the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.