Philippine Navy ship to ferry 499 LSIS to Basulta areas in Mindanao

DAVAO CITY—THE Philippine Navy (PN) agreed to ferry residents stranded in Metro Manila during the quarantine period back to their hometowns in the southwestern Mindanao island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-tawi (Basulta) after a transport mix up landed them instead to Cagayan de Oro City, a half day land travel to the supposed nearest jump-off point of Zamboanga City.

Despite the uncoordinated landing of the locally stranded residents (LSI) at the Cagayan de Oro airport, the Bangsamoro Inter-agency Task Force (BIATF) on Covid-19 agreed to facilitate their return to the Basulta area using Navy ships rather than passenger buses.

From the Cagayan de Oro City airport where they arrived on July 8 from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the 499 LSIS were transported by bus to their temporarily shelter at the gymnasium of Cotabato Sanitarium in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.

Cagayan de Oro City is outside the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim

Mindanao (BARMM).

The road trip would take about eight hours, after the Lanao del Sur Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) which assisted them at the airport reported difficulty in immediately transporting them to Zamboanga City due to stringent requirements of the latter on the entry of LSIS into the city.

“The Ministry of the Interior and Local Government [MILG] initially planned to transfer the LSIS from Cagayan de Oro to Zamboanga City via land, after which they would be ferried to their final destinations,” the BARMM’S Bureau of Public Information said. “However, the plan did not push through due to the conditions set by the city government of Zamboanga.”

The stranded individuals, 40 of whom are minors with ages ranging from four months to eight years old, would be tested by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) for Covid-19 at the Cotabato hospital.

The stranded individuals were transported utilizing 17 buses.