Lapu, Mandaue, Cebu City enter into ‘reciprocity’ agreement to allow entry of ‘exempted’ persons

CEBU CITY, Philippines — While Cebu province maintains that only limited individuals will be allowed to enter its jurisdiction from Cebu City, the highly urbanized cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu have agreed to honor each other’s exemptions in border entry restriction.

In a Memorandum addressed to Police Colonel Jonathan Abella, the chief of the Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO), Mayor Jonas Cortes said the three cities have approved a reciprocity agreement with each other wherein “the three Cities would respect the protocols and guidelines stipulated on their respective Executive Orders.”

This means that in their respective border checkpoints, they will allow the entry of persons or cargos into each other’s jurisdiction provided that they are exempted from the border entry restriction of the three cities.

Cortes said that their decision is “in consonance with the relative issuances of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Task Force (IATF-MEID).”

“In this end, it is requested that our personnel manning our checkpoints in the City be apprised of the Executive Orders of both Cebu City and Lapu-Lapu City in order for the exempted personnel as well as essential goods and cargoes as stipulated in their respective Executive Orders be granted entry into the City of Mandaue without the need of any passes,” Cortes said in his Memorandum to Abella.

This measure, however, may contradict the policy of the Cebu provincial government since Cebu province has closed its borders from Cebu City as it entered into Enhanced Community Quarantine at 12:01 a.m. of March 30, 2020.

Read: Cebu City: Going in is easy, going out….tricky

Governor Gwendolyn Garcia has explained that the border closure is a means to contain the spread of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) considering that the cases in Cebu City have now reached 20.

Among those whom the province allows entry from Cebu City are officials and employees of the provincial government, Cebu congressmen, Justices of the Supreme Court and other lower courts, directors of national line agencies, field personnel of utility companies, DOH officials and employees, hospital workers, and officials of financial services like banks and money transfer firms, and delivery cargos.

Read more: Garcia tells supermarket owners: Provide accommodation for your employees

Garcia also said that employees of supermarkets, pharmacies, and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies in Cebu City but presently lives in the province should be provided with accommodation by their employers as they are not exempted from the border entry restriction.

But following the reciprocity agreement of the three cities, those individuals who are not covered by the provincial government’s restriction but are included in the cities’ exemptions will already be granted entry into each other’s borders without the need of any border pass.

According to Cortes’ memorandum, the persons entering each city’s jurisdiction will only need to present identification to prove that they are among those exempted by the other cities.

Mandaue City, though a HUC, is still a component city of Cebu Province. It also serves as the border of the province and Cebu City in the north. /rcg