Subic welcomes ‘quarantine babies’

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — Two returning overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who are under quarantine gave birth to healthy babies a few days after arriving here from Saudi Arabia.

Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) chair and administrator Wilma Eisma said that the two babies are truly a miracle that happened during the government’s ongoing repatriation program here.

She said that the two new mothers were part of the 299 passengers who arrived last 7 July aboard PAL’s Flight PR5683 from Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

The repatriation program of the national government which utilizes the Subic Bay International Airport (SBIA) as an entry point has been a blessing for workers and other returning overseas Filipinos who booked their flights via the Philippine Airlines (PAL).

Eisma narrated that the new arrivals were quarantined for at least seven days in accredited hotels and other accommodation facilities inside the Subic Bay Freeport Zone and on 9 July, one of the workers in quarantine at the Vista Marina Hotel here, a 32-year-old resident of Cavite, went into labor and was brought by Bureau of Quarantine personnel to a government hospital in Olongapo City where she gave birth.

The following day, another OFW under quarantine at the same hotel, this time a 36-year-old from North Cotabato, experienced labor pains and was also brought to the Olongapo hospital for childbirth.

“Our information from the One-Stop-Shop Command at the Subic airport was that both deliveries went well and that the mothers and their babies were healthy,” Eisma said. “Following completion of the mandatory isolation and negative RT-PCR test results, they were soon discharged from the Subic quarantine facility.”