Barangay officials told: Monitor areas despite having no more control points

| Photo courtesy of CPPO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Barangay officials in Cebu Province should continue monitoring their respective areas despite the removal of the barangay control points.

If they would continue to monitor their respective areas then their residents would still be more protected not only from those who might possibly be coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) carriers, said Police Colonel Roderick Mariano, chief of Cebu Police Provincial Office (CPPO) in a phone interview.

Aside from that, if they would continue to monitor their respective areas then they could keep criminal activities low, which had been experienced as a result of the intensive monitoring in the barangays through the barangay control points, Mariano said.

“Dapat pa rin magbantay tayo. Panatilihin nating na yung ating low crime incidents,” said Mariano.

(We should continue to monitor. We should maintain our low crime incidents.)

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He said that if the barangays would not continue to their monitoring then the entry of illegal contraband and the comeback of other illegal activities would possibly happen.

Mariano said that while there was still no vaccine for the COVID-19, it was also important that the officials in the barangays would know who would go in and out of their areas.

He also said that health protocols must also be strictly followed, which would be another area that the barangay officials should look into so that the efforts of the previous months on taking care of the community’s health would not be put to waste.

According to Mariano, all the station commanders in the cities and municipalities of the province had already been directed to coordinate with all the barangay officials in their areas to make sure that they would still be able to protect the community both from COVID-19 and criminals despite easing of the restrictions after shifting to GCQ. /dbs