HK, Macau-bound OFWs still stranded for lack of flights
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 06:49:11 +0000
THOUSANDS of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) bound for Hong Kong and Macau cannot leave Manila due to lack of flights to the Special Administrative Regions (SARs).
Emmanuel Geslani, recruitment consultant and migration expert, said that although the Philippine government has lifted the travel ban to Hong Kong and Macau “these workers still have not left from those destinations because the tickets they are holding are for local carriers PAL (Philippine Airlines), Cebu Pacific and AirAsia who have not resumed regular flights to those cities.”
Geslani said the local carriers were still threshing out with the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) and the Bureau of Quarantine (BoQ) procedural problems of the flight crew who would be on those flights if they would go on self-quarantine every time they would arrive from Hong Kong and Macau.
“Most in not all those 10,000 household service workers (HSWs) are holding tickets or reservations for PAL and Cebu Pacific as they were purchased by their recruitment agencies before the imposition of the travel ban two weeks ago,” Gelani said, adding, tickets for international carriers like Cathay Pacific and China Airlines or other international carriers using Hong Kong as a stopover are more expensive and the recruitment agencies are reluctant to purchase them.
He added that a small number of HSWs left for Hong Kong using those international carriers either on the insistence of their employers, demand for their services or the threat of replacing them with other nationalities like Vietnamese or Indonesians.
Geslani said that Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello 3rd was incorrect in stating that OFWs bound for Hong Kong and Macau were waiting for the situation to improve in these destinations.
“Some OFWs have left with their recruitment agencies buying more expensive tickets with Cathay Pacific and other international carriers going to Hong Kong,” Geslani said.
Local carriers have raised concerns about IATF directives requiring local carriers’ pilots and cabin crew bound for Hong Kong and Macau to undergo self quarantine upon their return to Manila which would take 14 days before they would be allowed to fly again.
The Philippine government has authorized a partial lifting of the travel ban to Hong Kong and Macau allowing Filipino migrant workers, students, permanent residents and diplomats with their wives to return to these two Chinese territories.
The Air Carriers Association of the Philippines (ACAP) composed of PAL, Cebu Pacific, CEBGo, PAL Express and Philippines AirAsia has appealed to the Philippine government to lift the restrictions imposed on pilots and cabin crew, like the self quarantine, to enable them to fly to Hong Kong and Macau. BENJAMIN L. VERGARA