Lanao del Sur prepares for residents' exodus from Manila amid COVID-19 threats

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Officials are anticipating an “exodus” to Lanao del Sur from Metro Manila of Maranaw merchants and their families due to displacement as a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak.

Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. said Saturday he will convene on Monday the 39 mayors in Lanao del Sur and local officials in its capital, Marawi City, to build consensus on quarantine and rehabilitation measures for returning constituents.

President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday night placed Metro Manila under "community quarantine" from March 15 to April 14, 2020 due to the rising prevalence of COVID-19 infection cases. 

Adiong has deployed experts from their provincial disaster risk reduction and management council at the Laguindingan Airport in nearby Cagayan de Oro City to record incoming Maranaws en route to Lanao del Sur and to initially check their health conditions.

Senior members of the league of mayors in Lanao del Sur placed at between 25,000 to 40,000 their estimate of Metro Manila-based Maranaws engaged in small and medium enterprises.

“If the business climate in Metro Manila becomes damp due to this COVID-19 disease spreading around, surely these Maranaws will return to Lanao del Sur. Not all of them are from our province but majority of them are from here,” Adiong said.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Saturday he has instructed their provincial personnel to assist Adiong in addressing the concern.

“I have an initial directive to our mayors to closely monitor the health of constituents returning to Lanao del Sur due to the obviously difficult situation now in Metro Manila. Returning Maranaws should be quarantined and observed by personnel of the municipal health offices,” Adiong said.

Physician Allen Minalang, chief of the Lanao del Sur Integrated Provincial Health Office, said he and his staff have been coordinating with local government units since Wednesday to ensure cohesion in providing medical care to Maranaws returning to their hometowns.

Provincial officials in North Cotabato, also located in central Mindanao, have also been scrambling to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the province.

North Cotabato covers 17 towns and more than 40 barangays in its capital Kidapawan City, whose residents have not even fully recovered from devastation caused by strong earthquakes that hit the area last year. 

North Cotabato Gov. Nancy Catamco has expanded the scope of its COVID-19 Task Force by monitoring extensively public terminals and markets as part of a massive disease surveillance effort.

Catamco said officials and rank-and-file employees of the provincial health office are working round-the-clock in observing potential COVID-19 flashpoint areas, including public markets, terminals and commercial establishments such as malls and flea markets.

She said the provincial government has ordered the temporary suspension of assemblies anywhere in all of the 17 municipalities in the province and in the provincial capital, Kidapawan City, as an anti-COVID-19 measure.

Catamco said the anti-COVID-19 campaign of the provincial disaster risk reduction management council and the provincial health office is coordinated closely with the municipal health offices in the province and the city health office in Kidapawan City.

Physician Eva Rabaya of the North Cotabato IPHO reported Thursday to Catamco that 32 of the 38 “people under monitoring” for possible COVID-19 infection had completed a 14-day quarantine procedure and turned out clear from the disease.

The remaining six PMUs are likely to be discharged soon too, after complying with all evaluation requisites, according to Rabaya.