Contingent for Police Regional Office 8 preparing to board ship at Ormoc City Seaport going to Cebu City. | INQUIRER.net File Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — At least 106 policemen are expected to arrive in Cebu City on Friday, June 19 to provide additional manpower in enforcing quarantine protocols here.
Police Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO – 7), announced that policemen from Western Visayas and Eastern Visayas regions would be in the city as augmentation forces throughout its enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) phase.
Ferro told reporters in a teleconference on Thursday, June 18, that they would be deployed in ‘critical areas’ in Cebu City or in barangays, which remained under lockdown due to a high number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases.
“They will be focusing on critical zones to enforce what we have done in the past weeks when hard lockdowns were imposed in these areas,” said Ferro in a mix of Cebuano and English.
The PRO-7 director said the additional policemen in the city would be staying here until higher-ups of the Philippine National Police (PNP) order for their return in their respective regions.
READ MORE: PNP deploys 100 cops to assist in ECQ implementation in Cebu City
Ferro also said with increased police presence in Cebu City, they were willing to provide help to local officials.
“We would be working closely with officials of the barangay, and that of Cebu City,” he said.
“Let it be clear nga atong tabangan atong mga kaigsoonan nga dili magpanic (we will be helping our fellow Cebuanos not to panic). ECQ will make us more secure and we could be able to find out how to solve the other issues on the spread of COVID-19,” he added.
Last June 15, the national government’s anti-coronavirus task force decided to put Cebu City back to the strictest quarantine status until June 30 due to several factors.
These include a high doubling rate of COVID-19 cases within a span of seven days and the increasing demand for patients needing critical care.
READ MORE: It’s back to ECQ for Cebu City
As of June 18, the City Health Department (CHD) logged a total of 4,137 COVID-19 cases with 2,007 recoveries and 58 deaths./dbs