The Quezon City Local Government said it will file a legal case against the recruitment agency that allowed an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) to leave his quarantine hotel even after testing positive for COVID-19.
The 35-year-old OFW, who hails from Cebu, tested positive for COVID-19 last January 17. His sample specimen was sent to the Philippine Genome Center. The test yield a positive result to the more infectious UK variant.
While he was on quarantine in a hotel in Manila, his recruitment agency transferred him to a house in Riverside, Barangay Commonwealth.
QC Mayor Joy Belmonte said the agency should be held accountable for “being irresponsible” in transporting the infected patient to a barangay in Commonwealth.
“Their actions could have led to a very destructive state in our community if this has spread and we don’t know yet if it has actually spread because the results have not come out,” she said in an interview on CNN Philippines.
Around 350 people have been traced and over 100 in the area was already swabbed for the virus.
Belmonte added that they are monitoring 8 residents who allegedly manifested symptoms of the illness.
“Riverside is actually a depressed part of barangay, which is why I am all the more bothered because this is not a suitable place even for home quarantine and totally unacceptable what this manning agency had done,” the mayor said.
The city government is set to file charges for violation of Republic Act 11332 or Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act against the recruitment agency next week.
The latest swab test of the OFW already yield a negative result, but Quezon City health officials are still monitoring his condition.
