Cebu City Vice Mayor Michael Rama. | CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Vice Mayor Michael Rama is not keen on having Cebu City be downgraded from its enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) status after July 15, 2020.
In a virtual press conference on Saturday, July 11, Rama likened the shifting of the city to a more relaxed general community quarantine (GCQ) to opening Pandora’s box.
“If you’re talking about GCQ, and if it were up to me, I will not recommend (for GCQ),” Rama told reporters on Saturday.
“With what General Feliciano presented to us, having to downgrade and not focusing on where this virus is concentrated, we might as well open Pandora’s box,” he added.
Melquiades Feliciano, deputy chief implementer for the Visayas of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID), presented several findings and recommendations of the national government’s anti-coronavirus task force during the city council’s regular session last Friday, July 10.
According to Rama, the IATF-MEID suggested that local officials in Cebu City address the irreconcilable figures in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reporting, delay in contact tracing, to name some.
“I do not recommend the transition of GCQ at this time because the adjustments and measures are still in the process of being put in place,” he added.
Cebu City will remain under ECQ, the strictest mode of community quarantine, until July 15. /dbs