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DFA consular office to reopen on July 8

Philippines | National

DFA consular office to reopen on July 8

By Roy Mabasa

The Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday said the Office of Consular Affairs (OCA) at the Aseana building in Paranaque City will reopen on Wednesday, July 8, 2020, several days after its employees tested positive to COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) infection.

MANILA BULLETIN FILE

DFA Undersecretary for Civilian Security Brigido Dulay said they earlier decided to close their operations at Aseana and at their consular satellite office in Alabang, Muntinlupa City to give way to contact tracing and disinfection procedures.

“There were COVID positive cases among our people at Aseana in Macapagal and Alabang. Alabang is already operational today after disinfection and contact tracing,” Dulay said at the Laging Handa briefing on Tuesday.

Aside from COVID-19 infections of its employees in Manila, several staff members at the Philippine embassies and consulates in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were also among those found positive with the disease, prompting those offices to temporarily halt on-site operations to give way to health protocols mandated by the World Health Organization and the host countries.

On the Philippine government’s effort to repatriate distressed and stranded Filipinos abroad, Dulay said they have already assisted around 60,000 Filipinos from various parts of the world and the process will continue especially now that NAIA Terminal 3 is also back in operation.

For the month of July, Dulay said the DFA has flown home hundreds of Filipinos in eight separate chartered flights and more are scheduled to arrive via commercial flights from countries that already lifted their travel restrictions for outbound passengers.

Meanwhile, Philippine Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Hyayceelyn Quintana said about 78 percent of Filipinos afflicted by COVID-19 in that country have recovered.

Quintana said the percentage is reflective of the national figure on the number of COVID-19 cases.

According to the online monitoring platform Worldometer, the latest total number of COVID-19 cases in the UAE is 52,068 and the number of those recovered so far is 40,721.

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