Senator Risa Hontiveros today urged government to improve its assistance to Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) returning to the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as she sent relief packs for OFWs being held under quarantine in a hotel with allegedly poor and unhealthy conditions.
Hontiveros’s office delivered food packages and hygiene kits to help the over a hundred OFWs staying in a designated quarantine hotel in Novaliches, Quezon City, after a media report revealed that the workers decried the hotel’s poor sanitation and unsatisfactory services. The OFWs – who were working as seafarers- supposedly encountered dirty linen, insects on the hotel room floors, and brown water coming out of the hotel’s faucets.
“Nagpadala po muna tayo ng paunang tulong para naman makakain at makapaglinis ng maayos ang ating mga OFWs na nasa hotel na ito. Definitely, it is unacceptable that our OFWs in this time of crisis are forced to suffer these unhealthy, unhygienic and undignified conditions, and government should act swiftly and decisively to solve this problem,” she said.