Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo threatened to suspend barangay officials who allow motorbancas from Cebu carrying passengers to enter the province. CDN Digital photo | Florence Baesa
DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental—Governor Roel Degamo ordered stricter border control in the province due to rising coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID-19) cases in the neighboring province of Cebu.
In an interview with reporters after the meeting with the Law Enforcement and Peace and Order (LEPO) cluster of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases ( IATF-MEID) on Friday morning, April 17, 2020, Degamo said he ordered the provincial office of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to coordinate with the barangay officials in the shoreline barangays not to allow motorbancas from Cebu carrying passengers to dock.
The governor threatened to suspend barangay officials who will be remiss in their jobs and fail to strictly follow the guidelines set forth by the provincial government.
Degamo emphasized that there is a need to protect the 1.5 million residents of Negros Oriental.
No more positive cases
He said there are no more COVID-19 positive cases in the province for the past days and both the numbers of patients under investigation (PUI’s) and persons under monitoring (PUM’s) are also getting lesser.
“We want to preserve this [trend] and the only way to preserve that is to close the borders,” Degamo added.
According to the governor, with the figures going down he might declare a “modified general community quarantine” before April 30, 2020 the deadline of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in the province.
However, the governor clarified that the borders of Negros Oriental will also be closed from Mindanao, except for the province of Siquijor, which has no reported case of COVID-19.
Furthermore, Degamo said for the returning residents of the province, a medical certificate must be presented to prove that they have completed the 14-day quarantine from the place they came from.
And upon arrival at their hometown the returning residents will be mandated to undergo another 14 days of quarantine in their respective local government units. /bmjo