ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / 18 June) – Sixty-four locally stranded individuals (LSIs) from Cebu City arrived 6 a.m. Wednesday at the port of the Philippine Ports Authority here.
PPA acting port manager Medardo Sosobrado Jr. said the LSIs comprised 29 residents from Iligan City, 23 from Lanao del Sur, seven from Lanao del Norte and five from Misamis Oriental.
Some of the LSIs who arrive in Iligan City on Wednesday, 17 June 2020, bard a van for their trip back home. MindaNews photo by RICHEL V. UMEL
“Each group of LSIs were met by their respective local government unit representatives and vehicles for their respective destinations,” Sosobrado said.
“We are very strict in the implementation of health protocols for those who wish to enter the premises of PPA with specific purpose. No one is exempted, including me, from this protocol to prevent spread of virus,” he said.
The LSIs were screened according to their destination and prohibited from disembarking the vessel before their turn to undergo the health protocols, he added.
In Lanao del Sur, Sheila Divnani-Ganda, focal person of Sub-Task Force on the Management of Locally Stranded and Returning Overseas Filipino Workers said the provincial government hired 35 vans to ferry LSIs and returning overseas Filipino workers (ROFWs) from the Laguindingan Airport to the isolation facility in Sagonsogan in Marawi City for rapid diagnostic test.
Ganda said those who would test negative will be brought to their respective municipal quarantine facilities while those who would test positive will be subjected to swab testing, and the samples will be sent to to the Northern Mindanao Medical Center in Cagayan de Oro City.
She said Governor Mamintal Adiong Jr. earlier approved the procurement of 10,000 sets of rapid diagnostic test kits for LSIs and ROFWs in Sagonsongan.
The first five thousand of the test kits that were procured came from the United States and were recommended and approved by the Department of Health (DOH), she said.
Five thousand more were procured after 2,000 of the test kits earlier acquired had been used, she added.
As of June 17, the DOH said Lanao del Sur had 19 total confirmed COVID-19 cases, 10 of whom were still active, three had died and six had recovered. (Richel V. Umel/MindaNews)
