Malacañang announced that the Philippine government has implemented several remedial measures in their aim to send home all repatriated OFWs within 72 hours upon their arrival.
Presidential Spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque stated that the government intends to replicate the efficiency of the steps and methods done at Clark International Airport, where all OFWs who were repatriated last June 5 were sent towards their home provinces in just 72 hours upon their arrival.
“Because we implemented the strategy of, among others, swabbing them and utilizing labs outside of Metro Manila, they [OFWs] were able to leave the quarantine facility within 72 hours and we want to do this for every OFW,” said Secretary Roque during an interview with ANC’s Headstart.
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Secretary Roque also addressed complaints of OFWs who reported that they had been staying at quarantine facilites for more than 14 days, despite the assurance that they will only stay for up to five days’ time.
“We’re confident that the time that the OFWs have to spend in different quarantine areas will be a lot less,” said Roque.
The presidential spokesperson also revealed that among the challenges that the Philippines currently faces is the need to establish more laboratories that can conduct COVID-19 testing to help increase the country’s testing capacity.
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“We’re still aggressively pursuing the establishment of more laboratories because we don’t have enough. It’s not just the lab capacity, it’s the actual testing being done. We have to improve not just the capacity but also to make sure that they all have supplies so that they can maximize their capacities,” he said.
Reports from the Philippine News Agency state that as of this time, there are a total of 52 laboratories, including 33 operated by the government that can do 41,990 Covid-19 tests per day, National Policy Against Covid-19 deputy chief implementer Vivencio “Vince” Dizon said.
