MANILA (Reuters) – Thousands of Filipinos were crowded at a baseball stadium in Manila on Saturday, breaking social distancing rules despite coronavirus risks, after people who wanted to return to their home provinces flooded a program government transportation.
Filipinos stranded due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) huddle inside a ballpark for a government transportation program that transports them back to their provinces, at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, Manila, The Philippines. July 25, 2020. REUTERS / Eloisa Lopez
Authorities had reserved the stadium as a place to screen people before transporting them back to their home provinces under a program to help people who had lost their jobs in the capital return to their families elsewhere.
Authorities had planned for 7,500 people to arrive at the stadium starting Friday, but were caught when 2,000 other people who were not yet scheduled to travel headed there anyway.
“Due to the overwhelming number of people, we can no longer control (the situation) and the relevance of social distancing has diminished,” Deputy Secretary Joseph Encabo, who oversees the government’s transportation assistance program, told Reuters by telephone.
Police were deployed to urge social distancing, but people, including the elderly, children and pregnant women, were seen in close contact with each other. Some did not wear masks.
Many of those in the stadium had been trapped in the capital when it imposed one of the tightest and longest blockades in mid-March in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
That was alleviated in early June, allowing companies to reopen in limited capacity, but schools remain closed and mass gatherings are prohibited. People must wear masks in public and observe a social distance of one meter, while children and the elderly must remain at home.
Coronavirus cases have more than quadrupled as restrictions were reduced to 78,412, with more than half of those in and around the capital.
Among those at the stadium was Fred Marick Ukol, 40, who was stuck in Manila after his flight to Australia, where he had found a job as a welder, was canceled.
“We don’t have a job and now all of our savings have been depleted due to the closure,” said Ukol, referring to himself and fellow Filipino workers abroad.
Encabo said everyone at the stadium would undergo rapid tests for COVID-19 and must be cleared before they are allowed to board buses, boats and trains that the government has prepared.
Additional reports by Karen Lema and Jay Ereño; editing by Jane Wardell
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