After being stranded in Manila for two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Duterte returned to Davao City past midnight yesterday despite the ban on non-essential travel.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque confirmed in a text message yesterday afternoon that Duterte is in Davao City but did not provide additional details.
Presidential Security Group commander Col. Jesus Durante III likewise confirmed Duterte’s travel but assured that the President will attend the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases meeting next week.
Under the omnibus guidelines of the IATF released Saturday morning, “(L)and, air, or sea travel by uniformed personnel, government officials, and employees for official business with the corresponding travel authority and authorized HAAs, especially those transporting medical supplies and laboratory specimens related to COVID-19, and other relief and humanitarian assistance, shall be allowed.”
Duterte made this trip after typhoon “Ambo” (international name “Vongfong”) battered Luzon and Eastern Samar.
This was the first time Duterte returned to his hometown since the enhanced community quarantine took effect in Luzon on March 16. He spent his birth anniversary inside Malacañang on March 28.
Chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo had said in March that Duterte thumbed down his common-law wife Honeylet Avanceña’s request for him to fly back to Davao City.
“He said, ‘No,” Panelo recalled during an interview with ANC. “’The face of the country is Manila and the President had to be here so I’ll be here,’” he recounted the President saying. (Argyll Geducos)