‘Difficult task:’ PHL struggles to test 7,000 returning jobless seafarers for virus

By Recto Mercene, 12 May 2020

Some of the 610 seafarers of the MV Queen Mary 2 are met at the airport by a DFA representative as they arrive on Saturday (April 25).

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) are facing the difficult task of conducting mass testing for some 7,000 Filipino seafarers on board 18 cruise ships that have been anchored off Manila Bay for two weeks.

Together with the Department of Health (DOH), the PCG and BOQ have adopted the Covid-19 “gold standard” testing for all Filipinos aboard the cruise ships.

The mass testing of about 7,000 Filipino crew members is expected to be over this week and the crew members can leave the ship to wait for the results on land. It is hoped that the lockdown would be lifted on May 15, although some LGUs are amenable to a phased lifting.

Seafarers who tested negative of Covid-19 will be given their certificates of completion so they can return to their homes immediately on available ships, or planes.

Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., has pointed out earlier that the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has agreed that the seafaers, who have spent weeks quarantined in their cabin while on the way here, should be allowed to disembark upon arrival so they can head for home.

Aware of the numbers of Filipino seafarers waiting their turn at being tested after spending the last two weeks in Manila Bay, Locsin tweeted: “Keeping them out there in the bay is a real totally avoidable… There is no other word for it.”

“Why should we allow 400 to 800 Filipinos or even 3,000 to return home every day? Because…they have the constitutional, absolute & total right to come home that no power can suspend, slow down, or in any way restrict. Govt has only one power: to bring them home…,” the DFA chief added.

Aside from the 18 ships filling up Manila Bay, more are expected within two weeks bringing with them more jobless Filipino seafarers to join the ranks of more than 24,000 unemployed overseas Filipinos brought home by the DFA.

Prior to Covid-19, around 400,000 Filipino seafarers man the global maritime fleet, records show.

Those ships are the Majestic Princess, Explorer Dream, Celebrity Solstice, Voyager of the Seas, Costa Serena, Carnival Panorama, Pacific Dawn, Queen Elizabeth, Explorer, Pacific Dawn, Costa Neo Romantica, Ruby Princess, Sun Princess, Carnival Splendor, Sun Princess, Sea Princess, MS Eurodam and the Ovation of the Seas.

A 19th cruise ship, the Coral Princess raised its anchor on Monday and left for the United States after disembarking its load of Covid-free Filipino crew at Pier 15 last week.

More cruise ships are expected this week and the coming weeks from Europe, the Magsaysay manning agency said.

In another development, two foreign cruise ships members took their own lives in Europe while their ships were at port waiting for disembarkation for charter flights.

A woman crew member went overboard the ship while a male crew was found lifeless in his cabin.