READI contingent to assist deportees from Malaysia
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 11:45 AM Wed Jul 1, 2020
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By:
John M. Unson
The biohazard protection supplies intended for three island provinces in the Bangsamoro region. (Contributed)
COTABATO CITY --- The Bangsamoro government dispatched Wednesday to Zamboanga City an emergency response team to assist thousands of Filipino deportees expected to arrive soon from Malaysia.
Malaysia is deporting no fewer than 5,000 undocumented Filipinos starting this week, according to reports last week by local newspapers and radio stations in the Zamboanga peninsula.
The team sent to Zamboanga City by the Bangsamoro government shall assist in the mandatory COVID-19 screening of the Filipinos returning from Malaysia via the Philippine southern backdoor.
A big number of the deportees are residents of different towns in the Bangsamoro region that covers the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Wednesday the emergency workers deployed to Zamboanga City also brought with them biohazard protection supplies for anti-coronavirus frontliners in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
The group is comprised of employees of the regional government’s Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, or READI contingent operating under the supervision of Sinarimbo.
Employees of the provincial offices of BARMM’s Ministry of the Interior and Local Government shall also assist in returning deportees to their respective hometowns in coordination with local health authorities in keeping with Malacanang’s anti-COVID-19 regulations.