SBMA cancels work permit of Chinese COVID-19 patient
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT (PNA) –The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) said on Friday it would cancel the special work permit given to a Chinese national, who was recently confined in a hospital here for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection.
SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma Eisma said she has ordered the agency’s Visa Processing Office to cancel the Special Subic-Clark Work Visa (SSCWV) given to the Chinese patient as the holder has resigned from work on May 31.
“We’re taking this action because once a foreign national is no longer connected with a Subic-registered company, the employer must request for a downgrading of the employee’s special work visa,” Eisma said.
“But in this case, his former employer was not able to notify the SBMA because of the quarantine, so we have to set the record straight now,” she said.
Eisma said the Chinese patient was the same 29-year-old male Chinese that SBMA announced on August 7 as the latest COVID-19 case among guests and transient workers in the Subic Bay Freeport.
The announcement stirred concerns in the Subic community because the entry of tourists into the Freeport has been prohibited under Covid-19 quarantine rules.
She said, however, the Chinese patient was classified by contact tracers as a tourist after learning that he had checked-in to a local hotel last June 6.
She said the contact tracers learned he was not a resident, and was neither a Freeport worker so he was classified as a tourist.
He voluntarily had his swab samples taken on August 5 because he needed it to look for a job, she said.
The official added that further investigation into the case of the Chinese patient showed that he first arrived in the country in November 2018 to work as a customer service representative for TeleEmpire, a POGO service company here.
He briefly left the country on Oct. 12, 2019, to visit his family in Guangzhou, China. He came back three days later.
Since then, he has not left the Subic Bay Freeport because he “had no friends outside of the zone.”
He also admitted to having resigned from the company because he had intended to return to China which never materialized due to the unavailability and cost of air travel, so had decided to stay in Subic to find another job.
On June 6, he left the TeleEmpire guest house and checked into a local hotel, together with a roommate, also a Chinese national.
SBMA records indicate that the Chinese secured his first Special Subic Clark Work Visa (SSCWV) last in February 2019 and had it renewed last March 2020.
However, Eisma said this must now be canceled because the Chinese national was no longer employed by any Subic-registered company.
She said the SBMA would apply the same measure against the patient’s roommate, who had similarly resigned from TeleEmpire and was also looking for work.
The patient’s roommate, who also took the RT-PCR test in preparation for a new job, has tested negative for COVID-19.