At least 134 Returning Overseas Filipino Workers (ROFs) from South Cotabato arrived early this week from Metro Manila, Cagayan De Oro, and Davao City through the Balik Probinsiya Program.
Said ROFs are part of the first three batches of the 259 ROFs who managed to go home aboard sweeper flights from Metro Manila and Clark to General Santos City and Davao City airports while the rest came from Cagayan De Oro City as their port of entry.
The returnees were fetched by the team from the province and their respective municipalities.
From GenSan Airport, at least 48 South Cotabatenos arrived out of initial 82 ROFs, while 52 more managed to go home on Wednesday out of the 177 returnees across Region 12.
The Incident Management Team (IMT) of South Cotabato conducted orientation before they were ferried to their quarantine facilities in their respective municipalities. These ROFs will undergo a 14-day quarantine period as part of the protocols.
These 134 returnees are composed of the ff:
TBOLI -3
LAKE SEBU- 6
TANTANGAN- 8
KORONADAL- 36
TAMPAKAN- 4
BANGA- 12
TUPI- 12
POLOMOLOK- 26
SURALLAH-14
STO. NIÑO- 6
NORALAH- 7
The province’s Incident Management Team (IMT) led by Gov. Reynaldo S. Tamayo, Jr. thru the PDRRMO, C/MDRRMOs, IPHO, BFP, PNP and KABALIKAT Radio Communicator Volunteers has established the process of receiving the arriving Returning Overseas Foreign (ROF) and Local Stranded Individuals (LSI) residents starting their arrival from Gensan (airport), Cagayan De Oro and Davao city.
A decontamination procedure for all vehicles used during their travel was also conducted as one of the precautionary safety measures for everyone, especially to frontliners.
The repatriation effort is in response to the call of President Rodrigo Duterte to bring back the 24,000 stranded ROFs to their own provinces.
Aside from the ROFs, the provincial government of South Cotabato also starts to process the return of Locally Stranded Individuals (LSIs) from neighboring provinces.
Earlier today, at least three buses are en route to Davao City to bring home stranded province mates.
