A TOTAL of 5,000 migratory workers from Antique is expected to arrive in Negros Occidental as the sugar milling season opens, Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian, Provincial Disaster Management Program Division chief, said.
Caellian said that 300 already arrived on Thursday bringing the total to 500 workers already in the province.
The migratory workers or “sacadas,” work mostly as cane cutters in the vast sugar plantations in the province, the “Sugar Capital” of the Philippines.
Caellian said will all be swabbed for Covid-19 tests and are quarantined in quarters at the sugar farms where they will work, until the results are out.
They will only be allowed to start to work when they test negative, he said.
They are arriving by batches so we will not be overwhelmed in the conduct of the RT-PCR tests, Caellian also said.
He added that the cost of the tests will be shouldered by their recruiters.