BY ANTONIO L. COLINA IV
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DAVAO CITY – Mayor Sara Duterte has asked the national government to stop sending late-night sweeper or “bampira” flights carrying stranded passengers from Metro Manila to avoid any inconveniences.
If they do so, concerned Manila officials should advise Davao City officials and other local government units ahead of time of the flight schedules of their returning residents.
During her live interview over Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR 87.5), Duterte said that she had raised the concerns of the city government regarding accepting returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) and locally stranded individuals (LSIs) with Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and Department of Transportation (DOTr).
She said it was cumbersome for the city government, directed to receive all returning passengers, to suddenly get a text message late at night from OWWA that a flight was scheduled to land at the Davao International Airport in the wee hours of the morning.
“In our parlance, we call that ‘bampira’ (vampire) flights because sometimes there were flights that were scheduled to arrive at 3 a.m. We were told suddenly, at midnight, that an airplane was arriving around 3 a.m.,” Duterte said.
Without being informed ahead of time, she said the city government could not prepare in advance while other local government units in Davao Region could not immediately send buses to pick up their returning residents from the airport.
“We have no problems with that, except that the LGUs would find it difficult since residents would be left at the airports, many of whom would be put in hotels,” she said.
She advised OWWA to schedule regular flights for the returning overseas Filipinos, so that the personnel of the city government, tasked to process arriving residents could prepare while buses from the LGUs would be ready to pick up returning residents.
She said proper coordination with the city government and other LGUs could avoid causing inconvenience, particularly passengers who get stranded at the airport for several hours.
