Abellanosa: Cebu City gov’t needs to focus on pandemic

Cebu City South District Representative Rodrigo Bebot Abellanosa.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City South District Representative Rodrigo Abellanosa is urging the Cebu City government to focus on the pandemic as the continuously rising cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the city has reached 3,434 in only three and a half months.

This was in response to the revelations of the analysis of Dr. Tony Leachon, who stated that Cebu City was forming to become the ‘second epicenter’ of COVID-19 in the Philippines, and it could affect the entire Visayas.

Leachon is the special adviser to Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr., the chief implementer of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for COVID-19, and both were in Cebu on June 12, 2020 to check on the situation in the city.

Watch: COVID Crisis: Protecting the People, Securing the State

In his Facebook live on June 12, 2020, Leachon, admitted that the city’s healthcare system had been overwhelmed by the number of COVID-related patients. The Department of Health’s (DOH) response was to increase the bed capacity dedicated to COVID-19.

For Abellanosa, this analysis of Leachon should be seriously considered by the city government with its next steps to addressing the pandemic.

Focus on pandemic

Whether the city will be placed under the General Community Quarantine  (GCQ) or Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), the final fate of the residents relies on the city government’s focused plans to address the pandemic.

“If you have at least half of the top 10 barangays with the most number of cases in the country, then you easily become the epicenter in the whole Philippines. That is Cebu City. The fact that these cases were initially concentrated in a few barangays should have put the city government in a better position to manage them. But what happened?” said the congressman.

How it began

Based on the City Health Department’s data, the city’s cases began with individuals with history of traveling outside Cebu or health care professionals who might have been in contact with COVID-19 positive patients.

The first community transmission was recorded in Barangay Luz, which prompted a lockdown of the area on April 2020, as the cases rose to almost 200.

The largest case of community transmission was in Barangay Mambaling where more than 600 individuals have tested positive of the virus in 16 sitios in Alaska.

Read more: Bernadas: Barangay Mambaling on recovery stage

Barangay Suba was next with at least 150 cases. The jail facilities in Barangay Kalunasan were then infected with the virus with over 400 cases recorded inside the overpopulated prisons causing a major concern for the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

“Remember the delayed reactions in the detection, testing, and isolation of suspected COVID cases in topnotcher barangays Luz and Mambaling? Remember the indiscriminate mass testing instead of directed contact tracing and testing? Remember the mass gatherings of senior citizens in availing of their financial assistance instead of house to house distributions? Remember the first food assistance by city hall given more than two months ago, the so-called 2nd wave still has to create a ripple. All these and similar reasons make Cebu City number 1,” said Abellanosa.

Lapses

The congressman said that these lapses that occurred without particular intent have caused the city’s cases to rise rapidly compared to that of other local government units.

Still, the city government was able to purchase 34,000 testing kits for the contact tracing and massive swab testing and 10,000 rapid test kits for Project Balik Buhay.

Read more: Quarantine centers Cebu City’s edge to remain under GCQ — Labella

Cebu City also established 19 barangay isolation centers as well as a 100-million worth negative pressure quarantine facility at the North Reclamation Area, the first and only facility like it in the country.

Mayor Edgardo Labella also released P1 billion to address the pandemic.

Read more: Cebu City Council approves P1 billion budget to fight Coronavirus

Yet for Abellanosa, the city government may have lost track of its priorities in the long run, such in the case of building a multimillion quarantine center from scratch, but failing to establish barangay isolation centers before the infection became widespread.

“This pandemic is a knee on everyone’s neck. It engenders problems on health, economy, jobs, livelihood, learning, food, and survival. GCQ or ECQ for Cebu City? It doesn’t really matter.”

Firm leadership

“What matters most is effective and firm leadership of the chief executives in our city government focused on the right priorities to overcome this knee on the neck,” said the congressman.

The congressman urged the city officials to combat the pandemic through a focused strategy that would solve the problems surrounding the pandemic and still providing for the needs of the residents.

For Abellanosa’s party mate in the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan, former councilor Mary Ann de los Santos, the answer is transparency and information.

In her open letter to Labella, De los Santos said that the residents should understand well the problem so they could be accountable participants to its solution.

“We need to encourage the people to be more disciplined, to cooperate, and to be socially responsible. We need our hospitals to be even more ready with additional intensive care and isolation beds. We need to protect our frontliners by providing them sufficient supply of PPEs, and make available to them the right testing apparatus,” she said.

De Los Santos urged the mayor to seek the help of medical experts, and tap local talents to be consultants who can help him communicate more effectively to the Cebuanos.

“You do your part right and we, the people, will rally behind you. We are all going to resolve this crisis, and together we will keep the Queen City of the South alive,” she said. /dbs