Bong Go eyes temporary shelter for 50 OFWs

SEN. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go on Saturday said he would try to find a suitable area in Mindanao for the more than 50 overseas Filipino workers ( OFWs) from Wuhan, China if there were strong objections from the Capas, Tarlac local government on the national government’s plan to temporarily house them at the Athletes’ Village in Clark City for their mandatory 14-day clearance period.

“If no one wants to accept them, I will receive them. I will try to find a place for them in Mindanao. I will accompany them. I am not afraid of being infected,” Go said in an interview with a DWIZ radio.

Go, chairman of the Senate health committee, did not mention a specific place in Mindanao, but said there were many islands in southern Philippines.

The OFWs are reportedly scheduled to arrive on Sunday morning at the Diosdado Macapagal Airport (formerly known as Clark Air Base) from Wuhan, the origin of the deadly 2019 novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019-nCoV ARD).

But the Capas local government is set to file a temporary restraining order to block the stay of the OFWs at the Athletes’ Village for fear that Capas residents might be infected.

Go said he was informed by Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd that Interior Secretary Eduardo Año had already talked to the Capas local officials to reconsider their objections.

He pleaded for understanding of the OFWs who are considered modern-day heroes of the Philippines.

The OFWs, according to Go, work abroad in order to send financial help to their families and suffer deprivation and loneliness as they are away from their loved ones.

The government has set a 14-day observation protocol for returning OFWs or citizens or those suspected to have contracted the virus in the country.

Government teams, including those from the Department of Foreign Affairs, went to Wuhan aboard a chartered air flight to fetch the OFWs.

They are expected to be back in the country early Sunday.

Go’s committee conducted a public hearing on the coronavirus scare and conceded that the Department of Health had difficulty “contact tracing” the passengers seated near two Chinese tourists who came from Hong Kong and visited several cities aboard Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Cebu Pacific. One of the Chinese tourists died of nCOV.

Duque had blamed the airlines for refusing to give the personal and travel plans of the plane passenger, but PAL and Cebu Pacific belied his claim.

Go said he was not inclined to conduct another public hearing on the 2019-nCoV scare to allow officials and personnel of an interagency group to do their work rather than sit and watch during the hours- long Senate public inquiry.