By CHITO CHAVEZ, CALVIN CORDOVA
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) announced Wednesday that all quarantine passes in Cebu City have been cancelled due to the spike of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) cases.
With its cancellation, DILG Secretary Eduardo Año said the entire Cebu City is on a “lockdown’’.
In an interview over ABS-CBN, Año said that additional police officers were deployed in the area to ensure that strict quarantine measures are followed.
He added that members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were also dispatched as the residents need to be strictly confined in their respective houses.
President Duterte last week placed Cebu City under the strictest lockdown level: the enhanced community quarantine or ECQ that limits economic activities.
The cancellation of the validity of the issued quarantine passes caught many residents by surprise on Tuesday night.
The Cebu City Hall was flooded with queries after word began to spread around 8 p.m. Tuesday that quarantine passes will no longer be honored and a city-wide hard lockdown will be enforced.
The move was later confirmed by Police Brig. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, chief of the Police Regional Police Office Central Visayas.
In a teleconferencing with reporters, Ferro said that the at least 250,000 issued quarantine passes were revoked as a measure to force people to stay at home.
Ferro said the decision was made in a meeting with National Inter-Agency Task Force presided over by Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu.
Upon the instruction of President Duterte, Cimatu arrived in Cebu on Tuesday morning to oversee the measures taken against the coronavirus diseases (COVID-19).
Cimatu was accompanied by Health Secretary Francisco Duque, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano and National Action Plan on COVID-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr.
Ferro said all police stations in the city were instructed to strictly ensure that people found outside their houses are authorized persons outside residence (APOR).
“The mayor (Edgardo Labella) told the body that he is acceding to the recommendation of RIATF for the cancellation of 250,000 quarantine pass,” said Ferro.
Ferro said frontliners and other essential workers are the only ones who will be allowed outdoors.
Ferro said a new set of quarantine passes will soon be issued.
“We will look into solutions like issuing a quarantine pass intended only for one member of the family and residents will only be allowed to do their grocery in their scheduled time,” said Ferro.
In his public address late Tuesday night, Labella described the current situation in the city as “as a difficult time for us” but explained why the quarantine passes had to be cancelled.
“This drastic measure was put in place after an IATF team went around the city today and still found many people out of their homes,” Labella said.
On Wednesday, aside from increased police visibility and strict inspections in boundary checkpoints, two Huey choppers of the Philippine Air Force hovered over Metro Cebu.
“They were monitoring our implementation of ECQ and checking the reaction of the people,” said Police Col. Cydric Earl Tamayo, officer-in-charge of the Cebu City Police Office.
Tamayo said Armed Protected Vehicles of the Armed Forces will also be patrolling the city to help enforce the lockdown.
Tamayo said there were still a lot of residents found outside their homes yesterday despite the cancellation of the quarantine passes.
“Some of them didn’t know that the passes are already cancelled. Our troops reprimanded them, asked them to go home and good thing they obeyed,” said Tamayo.
After Cebu City, Año said the national government will also monitor Leyte due to sudden spike of COVID-19 cases with the arrival in the province of the locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).