By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

A total of 5,000 migratory workers from Antique are expected to arrive in Negros Occidental as the sugar milling season opens, Dr. Zeaphard Caelian, Provincial Disaster Management Program Division chief, said.

Caelian said that more than 300 migratory workers or “sacadas” already arrived on Thursday, October 8, and another group arrived yesterday.

The sacadas work mostly as cane cutters in the vast sugar plantations in the province, the “Sugar Capital” of the Philippines.

Caelian said they will all be swabbed for coronavirus testing and will be quarantined in quarters at the sugar farms where they will work until the results are out.

“They will only be allowed to start work when they test negative,” he said.

“They are arriving by batches so we will not be overwhelmed in the conduct of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests,” Caelian also said.

He added that the costs of the RT-PCR tests will be shouldered by their recruiters./DGB, WDJ