Granular lockdowns for barangays in Cebu City—Cimatu

Environment Sec. Roy Cimatu speaks before participants of the 4th International River Summit in this November 2018 photo.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Roy Cimatu, the overseer of the Interagency Task Force (IATF) in Cebu, said that instead of city-wide or massive total lockdowns, granular lockdowns will be implemented here.

“We have already informed the barangay captains that part of our new method of lockdown will be the barangay lockdown, that will be implemented by the barangay captain. We call it granular lockdown, meaning maliit na lang ang (smaller areas will be placed under) lockdown. We don’t have to place the entire city on lockdown,” said Cimatu.

The IATF overseer said that the barangays are amicable to this type of lockdown, and they have agreed to the method during their meeting on Wednesday, June 24, 2020.

Cimatu already took a bird’s eye view of Barangay Mambaling on Wednesday and raised his concern that the area is densely populated with houses built too close to each other, an easy breeding ground for the virus.

“That is why it necessary for the residents to follow the guidelines of the ECQ. I also look at the landscape of Mambaling. From the helipad, nakita ko talaga na magkakalapit yung bahay, and this is the reason bakit mabilis yung spread ng virus dun. (I saw the area is densely populated. This could be the reason why the virus spread quickly),” said Cimatu.

He also visited the NOAH complex at the South Road Properties (SRP) and praised the city for establishing such.

Read: Cebu City’s NOAH Complex officially unveiled

Yet he saw the need to augment the medical personnel in the quarantine center. He wants the center to be manned by in-house medical personnel.

Cimatu also visited the hospitals around the city and was glad to report that so far, the ratio of medical personnel and patients are still within the standards.

“We told them that if they need more personnel, just make a request and we will ask for that from the Department of Health (DOH),” he said.

The IATF overseer will be in Cebu as long as it takes as he was sent by President Rodrigo Duterte to oversee and evaluate Cebu’s response towards the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Read: Duterte to send Cimatu to Cebu to monitor COVID-19 situation

Cimatu said if he sees a decrease in the number of cases per day in the next weeks, he may recommend Cebu City be placed back under General Community Quarantine (GCQ). /bmjo