A job overseas, but stranded by coronavirus travel bans
HONG KONG — Jade Doringo arrived at Manila’s international airport more than five hours before her scheduled departure to Hong Kong, where she worked as a software engineer. But instead of getting on her flight, she was asked to surrender her boarding pass.
That morning, Feb. 2, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines had announced a temporary travel ban that barred flights arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. At the airport, officials told Doringo that the ban also applied to Filipino travelers going in the opposite direction.
As the new coronavirus has spread around the world, several countries have issued restrictions on travelers arriving from mainland China. The Philippines, which has reported one death from the virus, is unusual in imposing rules that prevent its citizens from traveling also to Hong Kong and Macao, semi-autonomous Chinese territories.
Doringo is among hundreds of Filipinos whose lives have been upended as they find themselves unable to return to their jobs in the two cities. “Imagine the confusion we felt at that time, not knowing everything,” she said in a phone interview last week.
Doringo had been sitting at the gate, watching as the crew waited for approval to board the flight and listening as airline employees repeated an announcement about the new travel ban. At 4 p.m., all Filipino passport holders were asked to go to immigration. Around her, domestic workers called their employers in Hong Kong, their voices rising in panic.
Then her suitcase got lost. But there was little else she could do besides huddle together with the other grounded passengers. Most of them had not eaten since that morning.
At 11 p.m., Doringo left the terminal empty-handed.
She had moved to Hong Kong two years ago with dreams of creating a better life for her family. The job in Hong Kong paid a better salary than what she would have earned back home, and soon after starting she was able to buy a plot of land in her rural province. She began setting aside money every month to build a house for her family.
She missed them constantly, particularly during the chaos of the past seven months when Hong Kong was rocked by anti-government demonstrations. Her homesickness only intensified in late January as the coronavirus spread.
“Protests, disease, the loneliness of living alone — all of this triggers the longing of going back home,” she wrote in an Instagram post Jan. 25 before she returned to the Philippines for a nine-day vacation. “To your real home.”
That trip started out in Manila, where she took her siblings and their families to eat lechón, a spit-roasted suckling pig, at a mall.
Later, she returned to her hometown in the countryside and rode on a motorized tricycle with her father to a creek near where she planned to build a house for them. Her mother cooked her a steaming beef broth. She cried, feeling relieved to be under their roof.
“I get to eat in Hong Kong, but it’s different when you get to share the meals with your family,” she said.
When it came time for her to return to Hong Kong, her brother bought a box of masks for her, and her parents nagged her to be careful. She ended up spending all day at the airport after her flight was canceled, then stayed at her brother’s home in Manila. Her lost luggage showed up two days later.
Her supervisor gave her permission to work remotely, but she was worried about being absent for too long.
“As overseas Filipino workers, none of us can afford to lose our jobs,” she said.
Doringo still is not sure when she will be able to return to Hong Kong. But she has stocked up on masks, rubbing alcohol and snacks so that when she does, she will not have to venture outdoors.
“I am afraid to get sick. We all are, but it’s our decision to take the risk,” she said.