OFWs should be given ‘red carpet not sidewalk treatment,’ says Recto

By JOHN CARLO M. CAHINHINAN

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto has scored the lousy treatment being rendered to repatriated Overseas Filipino Workers who were recently displaced due to the global health crisis brought by the coronavirus pandemic.

“They deserve a red carpet treatment, not a sidewalk reception,” said Recto in reaction to a photo of OFWs spending the night on the pavement of a NAIA terminal.

Recto stressed that “disturbing scenes” such as those in NAIA recently “should now be a thing of the past” following the commitment by Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) that repatriated OFWs will be sent home not later than 5 days after they arrive in the country.

Recto welcomed the government’s “gone in five days” policy for returning OFWs transiting through Manila on their way home, saying that the new system “as one that is painfully overdue.”

“Kung kulang ng tao na sasalubong at aalalay sa kanila, pwedeng mag-hire. Halimbawa, kung mayroong mga sweeper flights sa ere, kailangan din ng mga sweeper teams on the ground na dadalhin sa mga hotels yung mga OFWs na natutulog sa sidewalk,” Recto suggested.

He added that as more airports reopen to receive flights from abroad, Recto said this “deadline should apply nationally, not just in Metro Manila.”

“Let us hope that this is finally the beginning of a scaled up handling of returning OFWs so that the huge global backlog in OFWs wanting to go home will be reduced,” Recto said.

Meanwhile, Recto also urged the government to ease the plight of the displaced construction workers who have been stranded in Metro Manila and major cities “in their tens of thousands.”

“We should include jobless, homeless local workers, for they, too, have as much right to government help as their overseas counterparts,” he said.

According to Recto, many of them had to “walk under the sun and under the stars” for weeks, just to return to their homes empty-handed.

About 1.4 million construction workers lost their jobs a month after the government-declared lockdown banned construction work on March 16.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)