GCQ transition: ‘Certified healthy’ workers from towns may resume work in Cebu City

Edmund Liu of Bayanihan Cebu Ph and RDC Chair Kenneth Cobonpue explain about the strategized testing for employees as a requisite for them to return to work in the tri-cities. | Screengrab from the video of the meeting

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Despite maintaining border entry restrictions with Cebu City, workers who are certified as healthy or not carrying the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may already be allowed to resume work in Cebu City and go home to the towns in the province along with the transition to general community quarantine (GCQ) this Wednesday, May 20, 2020.

The relaxed protocol, which also applies to those whose workplaces are in the cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu, however, requires that these workers will undergo rapid tests for COVID-19.

The rapid testing will be shouldered by their employers as the counterpart of the private sector in the Project Balik-Buhay (PBB), said businessman Edmund Liu of Bayanihan PH and Regional Development Council (RDC-7) chair Kenneth Cobonpue.

Liu and Cobonpue attended the meeting with Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and the province’s 50 mayors on Friday, May 15, where protocols for the province’s transition to GCQ were deliberated.

Liu said companies from the tri-cities have committed to conduct strategic testing for all their employees before they resume operations and implement workplace standards as they reopen their businesses.

READ: Economic-health balance sought in deciding Cebu HUCs shift to modified ECQ

“Ang strategic mass testing para modakop atong mga naay infection. Ang workplace standards: distansya, mask, all these things [such as] sanitation, disinfecting, para mo-help prevent og bag-ong infection,”Liu said.

(The strategic mass testing is to get hold of those who have the infection while the workplace standards including social distancing, wearing of masks, all these things such as sanitation and disinfection will be to prevent new infections.)

Responding to mayors’ queries on how will businesses ensure that their employees will remain healthy and free of the infection, Liu added that random regular testing will also be conducted by the companies to “vigilantly monitor” the health of their workers.

Consolacion Mayor Joannes Alegado, during the meeting, also suggested for the companies to have a health monitoring sheet to keep track of their employees’ status.

A number of mayors also said that allowing the employees to go to Cebu City to work and go home to the province should be taken on a case-to-case basis and that the employers should provide for their employees’ transportation to further ensure their safety.

Once an employee is certified to be free from the infection through the rapid testing, he will be issued a certification by the health officer of the city where the workplace is located and this will serve as the basis for the province to also issue a worker’s pass.

The issuance of the worker’s pass, with the concurrence of the mayors, will allow them to go home to the towns after work. / dcb