By Tara Yap
ILOILO CITY — Another batch of repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) arrived Saturday in Western Visayas region from Metro Manila.
The Western Visayas inter-agency task force against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reported that a total of 41 OFWs, who were mostly seafarers, have been transported by passenger ships to the ports of Iloilo and Bacolod cities.
Iloilo province had the most number of repatriated OFWs from this batch with 25, while 10 were from Iloilo City.
There were also five repatriated OFWs from the island province of Guimaras, and one from Bago City, Negros Occidental province.
Lawyer Roy Villa, the task force spokesperson, disclosed that the repatriated OFWs all tested negative for COVID-19 before departing Manila.
Officials say that this time, the OFWs were tested via the swab test or the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), which is the gold standard in detecting COVID-19.
Previous batches underwent rapid test in Manila, but that yielded conflicting results. They were negative when they left, but tested positive via the RT-PCR when they arrived in the region.
Meanwhile, the OFWs are still going to undergo another 14-day mandatory quarantine and be tested negative again before they can go back to their respective homes.