Cebu City Vice Mayor Michael Rama. | CDN File Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Vice Mayor Michael Rama has expressed disappointment at how the city has handled the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
In a phone interview with CDN Digital, Rama said that the ECQ was implemented without enough preparations especially when it came to handling the quarantine passes.
Read more: A Cebu City resident’s guide to getting a green quarantine pass
He said the city had been aware of the spread of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), because this had been a constant topic of the regular session, but the preparations were still started late.
“I have recommended a lockdown a long time ago because this was the call of the World Health Organization, social distancing. Now we have a lockdown, the people are confused,” he said.
Read more: IN PHOTOS: Cebu closes its borders
In particular, Rama said the distribution of quarantine passes were redundant because the people could not travel anyway with no public transportation, closed establishments, and strict implementation of social distancing everywhere.
“What we should be giving are border passes to those who need to cross the borders of the city. For those who are inside the city, ngano magkailangan pa man og passes nga di naman gyod na manggawas ang mga tawo (why do we need to distribute passes when the people won’t go out),” he said.
Read more: Policemen less strict on border checkpoints on first day of ECQ
Rama questions if the passes can be distributed on time within the five-day deadline when the city has not prepared the profiles of households ahead of time.
“It’s not being useful, it will create confusion and only breed corruption,” he said.
The vice mayor said he called Mayor Edgardo Labella on the matter on Saturday morning, and he thought the mayor would listen to him.
He expressed disappointment that the quarantine passes were still distributed to the barangays on Saturday afternoon.
“Di nako moawhag. Dagko na na sila nga mga tawo. Mag-abot lang ta sa konseho. (I will no longer plead. They are adults. We will see each other in the council),” said the vice mayor.
He said he would raise his concerns in the council over the “impractical” measures placed for the ECQ.
The next council session would be on April 1, 2020./dbs