LAST week, the Cebu Provincial Government sent home 21 Filipino passengers from Taiwan who were placed in a quarantine after they arrived at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
Most of them were from Davao City. They complained about the lack of electricity and water and clogged bathrooms at the quarantine facility in Barangay Apas in Cebu City. Some demanded separate rooms, as well as fruits and vitamins.
Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia had said the travelers should have understood that it was all the Province could provide.
“It has water. It just so happened that we ran out. There is also electricity. We prepared as best as we could. We cleaned the facility. Maybe it’s just not up to their standard. Maybe they were expecting a mansion,” the governor had said.
Garcia said the Province didn’t encounter the same problem from passengers from Hong Kong who were also placed in a quarantine the week before.
They accepted the fact that they needed to be isolated to make sure they weren’t infected with the coronavirus disease 2019, or Covid-19, and to prevent its spread if they were, she said.
The Filipino travelers from Mindanao weren’t the only ones complaining.
Some Hong Kong residents who were on board a cruise ship were allowed to fly home after they were quarantined in Japan only to head straight to another quarantine facility in Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan.
According to a news report, one returnee found the conditions “totally unacceptable.”
The floor in the room that he and his wife were confined in was not tiled. The concrete was exposed. There was no toilet paper, he said, and it was dusty.
The quarantined passengers from Mindanao and the Hong Kong nationals had every right to vent their frustration. They were tired and probably afraid. They just wanted to go home and be with their loved ones.
However, they failed to see the purpose of the quarantine, which is to prevent the spread of or contain the contamination so as not to put the rest of the population at risk.
Once they see this, they’ll realize that theirs was a small sacrifice to pay for the safety of everybody.