Photo has been used for illustrative purposes. File / Reuters

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

The Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi (AUHPE) has uploaded on its website and over its Facebook page a five-point travel advisory to the over 600,000 Filipinos in the UAE, in relation to the March 15 to April 14 lockdown of the national capital region of Metro Manila (MM), a preventive measure imposed by the Duterte Administration against Coronavirus 2019.

Metro Manila is composed of 16 cities—Manila, Quezon City, Caloocan, Las Pinas, Makati, Malabon, Mandaluyong, Marikina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Paranaque, Pasay, Pasig, San Juan, Taguig, and Valenzuela—and the municipality of Pateros.

The advisory “reiterates call to all Filipinos to forego or postpone all non-essential travel, including travel to the Philippines.”

In case of urgency, Filipinos are advised to consider Clark International Airport in Angeles City, Mactan-Cebu International Airport in Cebu City, and the Francisco Bangoy International Airport in Davao City as other entry/exit points.

On returning Filipinos to the UAE: “Please undertake necessary preparation by always checking with your airline as well as by monitoring official statements from the UAE authorities on latest and most up-to-date travel advisories and quarantine/screening procedures.”

In Dubai and as a result of the Saturday unanimous decision of the MM mayors to implement the 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew as well as the closure of all malls and shopping centres as an additional “community quarantine” measure, Consul General Paul Raymund Cortes urged all his countrymen “to advise their families back in (MM) to heed the call for a curfew.

These measures are being undertaken to cut and mitigate further spread of the virus meant to benefit the whole of society.”

He expressed hope that Filipinos remain “calm as not only are our families back home battling this scourge but also here in the UAE and everywhere in the world. What we need is strict discipline to obey what authorities have recommended and prayers that this crisis ends.”

Meanwhile, Filipino nationals, their foreign spouses and children as well as the Philippines’s permanent residents and holders of diplomatic visas issued by the Philippine Government “always have the right to abode and right to enter the Philippines,” according to the AUHPE advisory.