MANILA, Philippines — The police will not let its guard down, even when the National Capital Region (NCR) is now under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ), and would continue to strictly implement granular lockdowns to help curb the spread of COVID-19 infections.
Although restrictions in the NCR were downgraded, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar directed his commanders to intensify the enforcement of granular lockdowns in areas with a high number of COVID cases.
“I have tasked police chiefs to prepare their men for this,” he said in a statement yesterday.
A total of 149,963 persons were apprehended for violating COVID-19 protocols in the NCR when the region was under ECQ from Aug. 6 to 20, or an average of 9,998 a day, according to the latest report from the PNP. If the adjoining provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite are to be included, the number of violators is 437,598.
Nationwide, policemen apprehended 690,320 violators.
Eleazar urged the public to cooperate with government efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, especially now with the presence of the more infectious Delta and Lambda variants.
Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said authorities will do away with region- or province-wide lockdowns by September.
DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing said the policy on intensified granular lockdowns on specific streets or barangays is being threshed out by the national government to take effect next month.
“Come September, we will do away with the province-wide or region-wide type of granular lockdowns in ECQ. Let’s focus on doing granular lockdowns for streets, puroks and barangays. But this would entail the imposition of full lockdowns. (There will be) no mobility of people when a specific place is put into lockdown,” Densing said partly in Filipino during an interview with “The Chiefs” on One News.
Local government units (LGUs), he added, would be empowered to implement the granular lockdown instead of elevating it to the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Densing noted though that once this expanded policy is approved, all residents, except for health care workers, will not be allowed to exit or enter the area for about 14 days.
“Once the authorized person outside of residence leaves, he will not be allowed to go back,” he added.
According to Densing, both the LGUs and Department of Health (DOH) favor the revised protocols on lockdowns, especially now that the country’s COVID epidemiological curve has been going up.
Data showed that the country has not gone back to the 1,000 to 2,000 cases per day level prior to the surge in March. The country logged its highest number of cases on Thursday at over 17,000 cases.
“Because of the current epidemic curve, we are looking at smarter ways to do lockdowns and to make efficient use of the logistics and money that the government has right now,” Densing said, adding that both the national government and LGUs would provide lockdown assistance in the form of food packs, instead of cash, when the granular lockdown is in place.
The DOH, in a statement yesterday, supported the proposal, saying the country cannot always rely on general quarantine classifications because “it is costly to the economy and livelihood of people.”
However, it stressed that the shift to MECQ should be accompanied with “targeted restrictions and monitoring of granular lockdowns and specific high-risk activities.”
Under this quarantine classification, high-risk activities such as dine-in services, whether indoor or al fresco, and personal care services are still not allowed. Religious gatherings are limited to online only.
“We will continue to see a dramatic increase in cases in the coming days and this is not the time to be complacent,” the DOH said.
Go warns vs complacency
With the downgrading of quarantine status in Metro Manila, Laguna and Bataan, Sen. Bong Go urged the public not to be complacent in observing minimum health standards.
He stressed that the move to reclassify these areas to a less stringent status is aimed at balancing the country’s economic and health interests, which would allow more industries to open and operate in a limited capacity.
Go, who chairs the Senate committee on health, reminded everyone to continue complying with health protocols to protect their lives and that of their loved ones and, for Filipinos eligible in the priority list for vaccines, to get their jabs and contribute to the country’s efforts to achieve herd immunity.
“We have gone back and forth to ECQ several times. This means that our enemy also keeps on evolving. Thus, we should not relax our guard and we should continue to be responsible citizens,” he said in Filipino.
He pointed out that when more of the population are vaccinated and the number of COVID cases start to go down, the quarantine restrictions may also be relaxed to allow more businesses to open and people to work. – Sheila Crisostomo, Romina Cabrera