MALACAÑANG on Tuesday, May 19, said it will look into the reported delay in the release of results of the diagnostic tests conducted on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have been held in quarantine since April.
In his regular virtual press briefing Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said he will ask the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) for a report on the status of the OFWs who are still under quarantine in hotels and ships.
"We will look into this now. We will go out of our way and actually ask Owwa for an inventory lalung-lalo na kung ilan na yung napakatagal nang nag-aantay ng resulta (especially on how many have been waiting for their test results) and really ask yung mga laboratories, kaya n'yo ba o hindi (can you do this or not)?" Roque said.
He acknowledged persistent reports on OFWs complaining about their prolonged stay in quarantine centers because of the delayed release of their test results.
Government has required returning OFWs to undergo quarantine of 14 days, which is equivalent to the incubation period of Covid-19. Some OFWs, however, have been in quarantine since April.
Roque said Malacañang will now look into the situation of these OFWs.
"Pangako ko, sige, pakikialaman na po natin 'yan. At talagang hihingi tayo ng imbentaryo sa Owwa, kung sinu-sino 'yung mga nag-aantay ng resulta, bakit ganoon katagal, at bibigyan ko po kayo nga abiso kung ano'ng sasabihin ng Owwa," he said.
"Palagi ko pong naririnig 'yan at ako naman po'y, at ang Presidente rin ay, nagiging concerned na dito dahil nga ang mga OFWs nawalan na ng trabaho, gusto nang makauwi. Titingnan po natin papa'no mapapabilis 'yan," Roque added.
On Sunday, May 17, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said some OFWs have escaped from the hotels that served as quarantine centers.
Their test results later showed that they were positive for the novel coronavirus, or Sars-CoV-2, which causes the coronavirus disease (Covid-2).
PCG spokesperson Commodore Armand Balilo said they were coordinating with the Bureau of Quarantine for the immediate release of the test results.
The PCG said at least 18,000 OFWs stranded in Manila are housed in quarantine facilities.
Some of these OFWs could not go home yet because their local governments have refused to allow them entry, Balilo had said.
Of the 18,000, only a third, or 6,000, have received their test results.
Vivencio "Vince" Dizon, deputy chief implementer of the National Task Force against Covid-19 and head of the government's Test, Trace and Treat program, earlier revealed a backlog of at least 7,000 diagnostic tests, especially in government laboratories.
Dizon said, however, they expected to address this backlog within two weeks.
As of May 18, a total of 30 laboratories nationwide have been authorized to conduct the diagnostic RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) tests to detect the novel coronavirus.
These laboratories conduct an average of 11,000 tests per day. Government targets to ramp up testing to at least 30,000 per day by the end of May. (MVI/VoxPop Philippines)