- Manila issued a sweeping travel ban on Sunday to prevent spread of deadly new coronavirus
- About 200 to 300 domestic workers are estimated to be affected, according to head of employers’ association
Hundreds of Filipino domestic workers have been barred from flying to Hong Kong, according to an employers' group and recruitment agencies, after Manila issued a sweeping travel ban to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.
Betty Yung Ma Shan-yee, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers' Association, said she received dozens of calls seeking help on Monday, a day after the Philippine government issued the temporary two-way ban.
Visitors arriving from China, including Hong Kong and Macau, will not be allowed to enter the Philippines while Filipinos returning home will be quarantined for 14 days. Filipinos are also banned from travelling to China.
"Around 200 to 300 domestic workers are estimated to be stuck in the airport, because as you know a few flights to Hong Kong have been cancelled," Yung said.
"An employer told me her worker, who went home for a holiday, had her flight cancelled on Sunday night. She thought it was an issue with the airlines, but it turned out it was because of the ban."
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Yung said the employer was trying to arrange for her helper to return by transiting through a third country, but it was uncertain whether that would work.
"What we are worried about is Indonesia could be the next one to issue a similar ban," she said. "The Hong Kong government has to roll out more measures to assure foreign governments that it is a safe place."
Domestic helper Cherrilyn Reyes had expected to return to Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon. But Reyes said she and other passengers sat and waited for five hours on the plane in Manila. Only then, were they told that Hong Kong-bound flights were cancelled because of the travel ban.
"My boss was asking me if I was okay, where I was at the time. My boss was expecting me to arrive that night," said Reyes, 38, who has worked in Hong Kong since 2016.
The Manila native said her flight was rescheduled to March 1, and her employer had agreed to wait for her. "I'm super worried," she said, adding that she would have no work for the month.
Mimi Ysulat, a domestic helper in Hong Kong since 2011, was supposed to come back to the city mid-February. But Ysulat said her employer called her on Monday morning and told her to stay in the Philippines.
"I need to work, I don't have money," said the 40-year-old. Ysulat added that her employer said they would wait for her, but still, the ban seemed unfair. "I'm not infected with the virus. Why are we punished for it?"
Teresa Liu Tsui-lan, managing director of helper recruitment agency Technic Employment Service Centre, said the ban would affect the arrival of new workers in Hong Kong. For her company, about 100 newcomers had been expected this month, but the agency could only notify employers about the postponement of their arrival, she said.
Among the employers affected was Hely Shu, mother of a two-month-old baby.
"As my husband and I both need to work, we hired a maid to take care of the baby," Shu said. "She was expected to arrive on Wednesday but now all of a sudden my plans are in tatters."
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Shu, who had mixed feelings about the ban, said her maternity leave would end in March but she hoped to work from home.
"As there are coronavirus cases in the Philippines, I was also worried about the health of the worker, or whether she would catch the virus on the plane," she said. "The outcome might have a positive side, though everything is uncertain for now."
Liu estimated that about 1,000 new Filipino workers arrived in Hong Kong each month, adding that the authorities had told agencies the temporary ban would last until February 29 at this stage.
While announcing further border closures on Monday, Hong Kong's leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, said the government had liaised with the Philippine consulate and she had also asked the Labour and Immigration departments to handle with discretion cases where work visas might expire because of the ban.
United Filipinos in Hong Kong, an alliance of migrant workers' groups, denounced the ban, calling it "an exaggerated response" to include Hong Kong and Macau.
"Many Filipino domestic workers are expressing fear of their contracts being terminated because they could not go back," it said. "We demand that Filipinos be allowed to return to Hong Kong for work, study and residency purposes."
The alliance also said the mainland China ban came too late, accusing President Rodrigo Duterte of putting his "diplomatic relations with China over the safety of his own people".
The ban was announced shortly before the Philippines reported the first death from the new coronavirus outside mainland China " a 44-year-old mainlander from Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak. He was the travel companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman, who arrived in the Philippines from Wuhan on January 21 also after travelling through Hong Kong.
The Post has contacted Hong Kong's Labour and Welfare Bureau and the Philippine consulate for comment.
Additional reporting by Albert Han
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