Salamat po. Filipino nurses and health workers in Libyan hospitals express their thanks to Vice Gov. Lilia G. Pineda and Dennis Uy for their donations. Contributed photos
ANGELES CITY — The Philippine Embassy in Tripoli has expressed its gratitude to Pampanga Vice Gov. Lilia ‘Nanay” Pineda and Converge ICT chief executive officer Dennis Anthony Uy for their donation of 5,000 face shields that gave hundreds of Filipino frontliners in Libya an added layer of protection against the coronavirus disease.
“The Embassy would like to convey its gratitude to Vice Gov. Lilia Pineda and Mr. Dennis Uy for their kind gesture that would benefit the more than 2,000 members of the Filipino community in Libya,” said embassy chargé d’affaires and head of mission Elmer G. Cato.
According to Cato, the vice governor and Uy immediately responded when he conveyed the request of Filipino nurses and other hospital workers for personal equipment to protect them from Covid-19.
The request was made in October when more than 20 frontliners in several hospitals in Libya tested positive for Covid-19 in a span of just a few days.
Nurses and other hospital workers comprise almost half the number of Filipinos working in Libya, which is among the countries hit hard by the pandemic, with more than 100,000 infections reported since March.
“Many of our kababayan in Tripoli, Benghazi, Misurata, and other parts of Libya have received their face shields and the embassy is in the process of distributing more to those in remote areas,” Cato said.
He noted that the face shields are also being distributed to Filipinos working in the oil and gas sectors as well as those in academic institutions.
The embassy also expressed its appreciation to Sen. Manuel Lapid, the members of Foreign Service Officers Batch IX of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Multisectoral Alliance of Filipino Migrant Workers in Libya, and the Filipino Community in Benghazi for covering the cost of shipping the face shields to Libya.
The embassy also thanked the Clark Development Corp. and Luen Thai Corp. for donating personal protective equipment for the use of embassy personnel.
