Labella to Cebu City residents: Stay calm, follow ECQ guidelines
Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella urged the public to stay calm amidst the decision of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) to cancel the validity of the quarantine passes in Cebu City late night on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.
According to Labella, the IATF was prompted to undertake the “drastic measure” because upon initial inspection, the agency found that many of the residents were violating the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) guidelines.
“We have been directed by DILG to cancel all quarantine passes issued to Cebu City residents. This drastic measure was put in place after an Inter-Agency Task Force team went around the city earlier today and still found many people out of their homes,” the mayor said late Tuesday.
“We will work to ease this transition as part of efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19. There will be difficult days ahead but let’s keep our eyes on our common goal, which is to save our community from this pandemic,” he added.
Labella assured that there will be new quarantine passes to be distributed and more details will be released in the coming days. The city will also work with IATF in ensuring that the residents will still have access to their basic needs.
Finally, the mayor urged the public to avoid sharing unverified information so as not to cause panic.
Councilor David Tumulak, the City Council’s chairperson for the committee on disaster risk reduction and management, said that although the residents can no longer go out of their home barangays, essential workers may still move about freely.
Essential workers would include medical workers, government workers, employees of exempted establishments, law enforcement, media personnel, and other individuals necessary to ensure the movement of goods remain unhampered.
As for the rest of the residents, the city government urges them to stay home unless there’s an emergency.
As of 10 a.m. on June 23, 2020, Cebu City has 4,479 COVID-19 cases, of which 2,213 are active cases. /bmjo
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
