Zamboanga City mayor appeals not to use city as point of referral for deportees from Malaysia

Zamboanga City Mayor Beng Climaco has appealed to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) not to use the city as a point of referral for Filipino deportees from Malaysia.
Climaco made this appeal to IATF chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. after the COVID-19 UK variant was recorded in Malaysia recently.
“Zamboanga City should no longer be a point of referral for the returning Filipinos […] we have centers already in Tawi-tawi and Sulu,” she said.
She also reiterated that only a few deportees from Malaysia are residents of Zamboanga City.
With the COVID-19 UK variant detected in Malaysia, the Zamboanga City mayor laments that cases in the city might increase especially when several residents violate health and safety protocols.
Over 12,000 individuals in Zamboanga City were apprehended for violating health and safety protocols since January.
At present, repatriation of all deportees and locally stranded individuals (LSIs) from Malaysia are suspended in the city. -AAC (with reports from Val Villaflor)