Cebu City South District Representative Rodrigo Bebot Abellanosa.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City South District Representative, Congressman Rodrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa, urged the Interagency Task Force (IATF) for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) to implement localized enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
Implementing localized ECQ will serve as a staggered way of lifting the massive ECQs being implemented in Luzon and in other regions in other individual provinces in the country.
“The Enhance Community Quarantine has brought together clashing issues on controlling the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the resultant is massive unemployment, public health and nutrition consequences, and the inadequacies of the government to feed millions of people,” said Abellanosa in a statement.
The congressman said localized ECQs will be a win-win solution since the quarantine will be limited by barangays, clusters, purok, or sitios; or by employment communities such as construction, food production, food processing, manufacturing, call centers, building maintenance, and the like.
Abellanosa proposed that food deliveries and public transportation be allowed to operate only within the local quarantines to prevent spread from one area to another.
Supermarkets and big grocery stores or food wholesalers must be obliged to hire out-of-work drivers, cashiers, and baggers; and to lease standby jeepneys, trucks, and buses to set up mobile stores in local quarantines.
“This will minimize the confusion and problems arising from the issuance of quarantine passes for people to access stores outside their local quarantines,” said the legislator.
The police and law enforcers should actively discourage residents from going out of their local quarantines, with the exception of medical and health personnel and the delivery of cargo and government aid.
For Abellanosa, the government has to be creative when it comes to finding solutions to contain the pandemic while ensuring the people continue to have access to and afford basic necessities. /bmjo