Province restores baragay checkpoints

CEBU, Philippines —  Aside from putting up strict control on its borders with Cebu City, the Province of Cebu has also reinstituted the barangay checkpoints to prevent spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the province.

The order to bring back barangay checkpoints was contained in the memorandum signed by Governor Gwendolyn Garcia furnished to all mayors and village chiefs of the province.

This measure, as explained by Garcia in her virtual presser, is to ensure that unauthorized persons would not be allowed entry into the barangays to prevent transmission of the virus.

“We are reinstituting border restrictions in the barangays. I have signed this memo that shall be sent to all mayors in the municipalities and component cities and to our barangay captains,” she said.

Only residents, returning locally stranded individuals and overseas Filipino workers, and the exemptions enumerated in Garcia’s executive orders and relevant resolutions released by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Mitigation of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) will be allowed entry into the barangays.

To recall, Garcia signed EO 17-H putting up Cebu Province’s borders once again on Cebu City. This is in response to the continual increase of the COVID-19 cases in the city.

In a previous interview, Garcia pointed to the observable increase in the province’s COVID-19 cases after it has lifted its border control on Cebu City earlier this month.  FPL (FREEMAN)