Health Secretary Francisco Duque III is looking at the possibility of publishing the names of travelers who will not provide correct details in their health declaration forms upon arrival in the Philippines.
This as five of the eight returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) from South Africa initially unaccounted for have been located, the Department of Health said.
"We have already located another five, so we are just trying to locate two of these travelers," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a message to reporters.
The DOH earlier announced that one of the ROFs was located on Wednesday.
The eight were among the 253 travelers from South Africa who arrived in Manila from November 15 to 29, before the Philippines enforced temporary travel restrictions over several other countries over the Omicron variant.
Speaking to CNN Philippines' The Source, Duque said he would consult with the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government on the legal implications of the proposal to name the travelers.
“There are legal implications in having their names printed or published so that the neighbors would know and alert them. That could be helpful but it's not without possible legal consequences," Duque said.
"For now, we just continuously remind people to please provide the correct answer to the questions in the health declaration form," he added.
Duque said the government would have to make sure up to what extent personal information could be disclosed to the public, but he said he personally felt this should be done under the health crisis.
"We will push for it," he said.
"I will see to what extent I can do that because I strongly feel that this is a weakness in the system and sometimes unintended consequences of laws that weaken the ability to do more effective contact tracing or backtracing."
But DOH spokesperson Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire believes there is no need for now to expose the identities of erring travelers since all of them are eventually traced, adding an investigation is needed to find out the circumstances why the person gave incorrect information.
The DOH earlier said the eight ROFs provided incorrect or incomplete information upon their arrival, making it difficult for authorities to trace them.
