‘Anxious’ Filipinos in India want to go home as COVID-19 crisis worsens

Filipinos in India are desperate to return home as the coronavirus disease pandemic killed over 200,000 people in the South Asian country.

In Dano Tingcungco's Tuesday report on State of the Nation, Fatima Sharma, a Filipino living in India, said her fellow Filipinos were "anxious" to go home because India was overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases.

"Ang situation in India is worse. I think. This is worse than last year," said Sharma.

Anabelle Villamarin, a school principal living in Haryana state, said she received reports that wives are performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on their husbands, who are having difficulty breathing.

She said she spotted some people leaving their parents in driveways because they could no longer take care of them.

Villamarin also said most of her Filipino friends wanted to return to the Philippines because the COVID-19 situation in India was "very dire."

"Siyempre kailangan magkaroon ng safety precautions. Hindi kami makalabas, even going to the airport. Lahat halos ng kilala kong Pilipino gusto na umuwi," she said.

(We need to follow safety precautions. We can't go out even to the airport. Almost all of the Filipinos here want to go home.)

Earlier, the Philippine Ambassador to India reported that two Filipinos succumbed to the illness.

The Philippines also imposed a 14-day travel ban on all travelers coming from India.

According to the US-based John Hopkins University COVID-19 tally, India had reported 17,636,186 total cases of coronavirus disease.

Experts said the new variant that originated in India caused a surge in their country, which has more than 300,000 new COVID-19 cases. — Consuelo Marquez/DVM, GMA News