118 vehicles from Cebu City denied entry at Talisay checkpoint

Talisay City policemen man the border checkpoint of Talisay City and Cebu City during the implementation of the “one-entrance policy” of Talisay City that started at 12:01 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020. | Photos from Talisay City Police

CEBU CITY, Philippines — At least 118 private vehicles carrying unauthorized personnel were denied entry into Cebu province during the first day of the “one-entrance policy” in the border of Talisay City and Cebu City at the Cebu South Coastal Road on Tuesday, April 21, 2020.

Talisay City Mayor Gerald Anthony Gullas said the vehicles and its passengers were not among those exempted from the border entry restriction that the province is implementing due to the high incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Cebu City.

In Governor Gwendolyn Garcia’s Executive Order no. 5-Q, which sets additional border measures, the only persons allowed to enter the province from Cebu City are the provincial government officials; justices of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Court of Tax Appeals, and Sandiganbayan; Ombudsman and the Deputy Ombudsman; judges of lower courts and their skeletal staff; Cebu congressmen; health officials; frontline health workers; skeletal workforce of other government agencies; media personnel; and field personnel of utility companies such as MCWD, energy and telecommunications companies.

In a meeting at the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon, Garcia asked the heads of institutions who are exempted from the border restriction to submit the list of their specific employees who will need to cross borders.

Garcia said this is to further limit the ingress of persons from Cebu City into the province as the number of COVID-19 cases here spike to 173 as of the April 21 data of the Department of Health in Central Visayas.

Read: Traffic congestion expected at border of Cebu City and Talisay City at CSCR

With the one-entrance policy, all persons entering the province from Cebu City may only pass through the Cebu South Coastal Road (CSCR) to get into Talisay City, the southern border of Cebu City and the province.

Prior to the implementation of the new scheme, vehicles could pass through barangays Bulacao, Manipis, Campo 4, and Candulawan.

Vehicle tally

Gullas said the authorities manning the checkpoint are implementing a three-lane policy at the CSCR: the rightmost lane is for motorcycles, middle lane is for private vehicles, and the leftmost lane is for cargo vehicles.

The tally of vehicles that passed through the checkpoint showed that a total of 961 vehicles entered Talisay City and the southern part of Cebu on Tuesday.

Of the 961 vehicles, 215 were transporting medical personnel, 220 belonged to banks and money remittances, 117 belonged to local government units in southern Cebu, 75 from other government agencies, 88 were patients who came had medical treatment in Cebu City hospitals, 45 belong to telecoms, 21 were security guards, and 180 were vehicles belonging to exempted workers in utility and energy companies.

Despite the number of vehicles that had to stop at the checkpoint, Gullas said the traffic situation has been manageable on the first day of the one entrance policy.

Read: First day of Talisay City’s ‘One-entrance policy’ went well, says police chief

“The build up of traffic at maximum reached around 150 meters, which is better than what we expected na traffic. I thank the police and everyone involved for making a 3-point checkpoint in different locations within the road [as] that scheme has really minimized traffic sa checkpoint,” Gullas said. /bmjo