Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia inspects the border checkpoint at the border of Mandaue and Cebu cities along AS Fortuna St.in Mandaue City a few hours after the province’s ECQ has started last April. | Rosalie O. Abatayo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — As Cebu province is set to transition from enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to general community quarantine on Monday, June 1, 2020, policemen in the province manning border checkpoints are reminded to strictlly implement the checking of documents of people on vehicles especially politicians or government agencies.
Police Colonel Roderick Mariano, Cebu Police Provincial Office (CPPO) chief, gave this order to the policemen manning checkpoints.
Mariano said this was to avoid any more incidents where a Cebuana beauty queen and her boyfriend were able to pass multiple quarantine border checkpoints before they were arrested in Moalboal.
Mariano was referring to Maria Gigante and her boyfriend Javier Castro, who passed several border checkpoints from Cebu City to Moalboal town in southern Cebu where they were caught swimming in a beach there and allegedly drinking beer, which were a violation of the ECQ at that time in early May and the liquor ban.
Read more: Maria Gigante, Spanish bf face disobedience, ECQ violation charges
The CPPO chief said that although the policemen were allegedly deceived because the couple allegedly presented documents from a partylist congressman that allegedly turned out to be fake.
He said that the policemen could have verified first and contacted assigned agencies and the couple would have been apprehended before they could have reached Moalboal.
Read more: CPPO wants to make sure there’s no negligence in checkpoints
“It is a lesson learned that we should be careful and be able to think of ways to confirm if the documents are not fake,” said Mariano.
Mariano said that the CCPO personnel would be more careful and strict the next time especially when it would involve checking documents. /dbs