CEBU CITY, Philippines–On Wednesday, June 24, 2020, residents of Cebu City will not be allowed to go outside their barangays unless they are authorized persons outside their residence (APOR).
This after Police Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, director of Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), announced on Tuesday evening the suspension of quarantine passes issued by the Cebu City government.
“They need to be in the area lang muna ng ilahang barangay. They cannot go out from their barangay. They should stay in their barangay,” said Ferro.
He said this is done in line with the plan of the city to redistribute carefully the quarantine passes and control the number of people who go out in the hopes of lessening the COVID-19 cases in the city, which stands at 4,479 (2,213 active cases) as of 10 a.m. of June 23.
Ferro said that the suspension of all the 250,000 distributed quarantine passes of the Cebu City Hall was agreed during the a meeting with Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella and members of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) on Tuesday afternoon.
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The suspension of the quarantine passes was effective 10 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23, which means the passes can no longer be used to go out a barangay (village).
Ferro said that that until the city government is able to redistribute new passes or come up with other solutions to minimize people going out, residents will be limited to staying within their respective barangays.
Exemptions
Those exempted from the suspension are the APOR, or the frontliners, such as health workers, policemen, members of the media, and other essential workers.
Ferro said that they are set to meet with Mayor Labella on Wednesday, June 24, to discuss how they will go about with the redistribution of the updated quarantine passes.
Meanwhile, Ferro said that the top 10 barangays with most number of COVID-19 cases will be put under hard lockdown. /bmjo