A sample of the new QR-coded Enhanced Community Quarantine pass in Cebu City.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City spokesperson Rey Gealon appealed to the police to honor QR passes that bear the names of apartments, condominium buildings, or compounds.
This he said after residents of these residential establishments have been disallowed by the police to use the QR passes with the residential lot name instead of the household’s head of the family.
Gealon said that as the city continues to distribute the QR passes, some compounds, apartments, and condominiums have been given one to three passes to be shared by all unit owners.
With this, he said the police should honor these QR passes because the residents need to buy supplies in order to survive.
“Ang kanang ipanghatag sad nga QR passes, palihog ayaw itamper. Mahimo ang ngalan sa sa village, ngan sa condominium, ngan sa subdivision mao ‘y ibutang aron maghuwamay sa di pa makompleto ang one per household sa passes,” said Gealon.
(The QR passes that have been distributed, please do not tamper them. The name of the village, condominium, or subdivision can be placed in the pass as the residents will share the pass while waiting for the completion of the one-pass-on-household policy.)
Gealon said the police have been instructed to honor these for the meantime because some barangays have yet to complete the distribution of passes.
A resident of Barangay Busay, who requested anonymity, said that in their compound of five households, only one was provided with the QR pass.
This proved a problem because only person representing the entire compound disallowing the rest to go out to withdraw money or buy their own needs.
The resident said that this system of the QR pass is ineffective and will only cause many households to go hungry in the time of the quarantine.
Warning to barangay chiefs
But Gealon said this is only temporary as the city targets to provide every household with one QR pass in the long run.
Still, for barangay chiefs, Gealon appealed to them to distribute the passes already. He warned that those who fail to distribute them may face dereliction of duty based on IATF mandate.
He urged the chiefs to complete the distribution and report any deficiency in the number of passes so these will be addressed.
He also urged residents to call the Mayor’s Assistance Center hotline to report the failure of the distribution of the passes in a barangay.
The public may also send a message to the Cebu City Public Information Office Facebook page. /bmjo