The commander of the Joint Task Force Corona Virus Shield ordered all policemen to refrain from detaining and imposing physical punishments against violators of the home quarantine rules.
Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, also the deputy chief for operations of the Philippine National Police (PNP), said that policemen should stick to ensuring that the guidelines on Enhanced Community Quarantine guidelines are strictly implemented and for them to properly explain the reason why the government is imposing such rules.
“This is not the time for this. In fact, this is the time for understanding and sacrifices,” said Eleazar when asked to comment on the punishments being given to violators during the Laging Handa briefing aired over PTV4.
Eleazar said this is also the clear message of PNP chief Gen. Archie Gamboa whom he said ordered police commanders not to detain curfew violators.
He said Gamboa also gave instruction to conduct investigation on the policemen who would detain and hurt curfew violators.
The JTF CV Shield, which Eleazar heads, is the implementing arm of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Management of the Emerging Infectious Diseases, particularly on the aspect of strictly implementing the Luzon-wide Enhanced Community Quarantine.
Eleazar noted that while he understands that some people may have reasons to go out, they should also take into consideration that they could already be a virus carrier that could infect other people in areas where they want to go.
Health officials earlier said that all people should act as if they are virus carrier as a way of effectively preventing the spread of the COVID-19.
“The virus does not move. People move it. We stop moving, the virus stops.
It’s that simple,” Eleazar stressed in explaining why the home quarantine guideline must be strictly implemented.
On the other hand, Eleazar said he also understands that policemen are themselves already tired and are themselves fearing of the infection. But he said that all policemen should always bear in the mind that they are public servant.
In the past days, various local government units have passed their respective ordinances on curfew as a way of preventing the spread of the virus in their respective communities.
The implementation of the ordinances came with various punishments that include exposing the violators under the heat of the sun and in one case, curfew violators were jailed inside a dog cage.
Eleazar said that there is already an instruction from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to just list the names of the violators and all the circumstances that led to their arrest.
The instruction is for the violators to be allowed to go home.
“We will just consolidate all the violations that they committed and after everything normalized, they will have to pay the price for their irresponsible actions,” said Eleazar.
The penalties include fine and prison terms.
Thousands of people were arrested in Luzon since the ECQ was implemented on March 17. In Metro Manila, more or less 10,000 people were already arrested.
In Central Luzon, more than 1,000 people were collared while in Cavite alone, more than 600 people were already arrested. (Aaron Recuenco)
