Task force ready to help OFWs if barred from their hometowns

May 5, 2020

The Joint Task Force COVID Shield on Tuesday assured returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) they will help them in case they were barred from entering their hometowns and be subject to discrimination while on their way home.

“Like our medical frontliners, our OFWs do not deserve to be discriminated and unfairly treated in their own land,” Police Lieutenant General Guillermo Eleazar, JTF commander, said.

“Our President, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, himself said that the sacrifices and contribution of the OFWs to our economy should not be repaid with these kinds of unfair treatment,” he added.

Eleazar said agencies under the JTF COVID Shield are ready to assist and even escort returning OFWs to their hometowns to make sure they could go home safely.

The JTF COVID Shield, the enforcement arm of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID), is composed of the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP).

Eleazar said there are existing protocols being implemented by the national government on returning OFWs such as 14-day quarantine and even testing for coronavirus.

“We understand the concerns of the local government units especially on the safety of their constituents but if these protocols were already followed and the OFWs were already given a clearance to go home, there is no reason for the local officials to treat them unfairly,” he said.

He stressed that even returning OFWs are aware of the risk and would not want their family be infected by the coronavirus.

Eleazar then urged the returning OFWS to call hotlines of the JTF COVID Shield if they feel they are being discriminated.

In his public address last Monday night, Duterte warned local government units against imposing their own guidelines especially on matters concerning the returning OFWs.

"The problem now is these returning Filipinos who are not accepted by the local governments. Now it will boil down to the power of the President to promulgate rules and regulations to protect public health which is actually an exercise of the police power of the state as against the bill of rights,” he said.

“Because some workers coming from the outside are not welcomed. Simply they are not being accepted by the local governments. So this difficult, this is a constitutional issue," he added.

Duterte said he understands the concern of the LGUs that they "want the contagion stopped right there, there at the doorstep” but told them, "the national government will insist that you accept the OFWs."

So far, there are about 25,000 repatriated OFWs, said National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr.  Ella Dionisio/DMS