(Eagle News) — Over 9,000 Filipinos have returned to the Philippines via the newly reopened Subic airport, the Bureau of Immigration said.
According to Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente, based on information from BI-Clark International Airport (CIA) head supervisor Maan Krista Lapid-Legaspi, 9,111 passengers arrived in the country through the airport since the same reopened in July to service special commercial flights from abroad after a decade of halted service.
“Our immigration officers in Clark are serving these Subic flights that arrive two to three times a week, each of which carries an average of 200 to 300 passengers,” Legaspi said.
She said a total of 33 flights from several cities in the Middle East, China and Palau have already arrived from the time these repatriation flights started.
“Upon receiving the advanced notice on the schedule of these flights, we designate the number of immigration officers to provide arrival formalities,” Morente said.
The bureau said the overseas Filipinos who arrived through Subic had been stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic.