Augmented police officers to stay in Cebu City
Members of the Special Action Force are assigned to an area in Basak San Nicolas in Cebu City. | CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines–Regardless of the new quarantine status, the additional police officers fielded in Cebu City will stay.
Police Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), said he asked higher-ups from the Philippine National Police (PNP) to extend the stay here of the more than 200 police officers from different parts of the region.
“I asked for an extension to sustain the gains we had when we were under ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) and MECQ (modified enhanced community quarantine),” Ferro said in a mix of Cebuano and English.
Police officers from the Eastern and Visayas Regions, as well as of the elite Special Action Force (SAF) were deployed in Cebu City since June to help reinforce quarantine protocols here.
Read: SAF troops to secure hotspot brgys in Cebu City
Cebu City is currently under MECQ, and the national government is expected to announce its new quarantine status today, Friday, July 31, 2020.
While hoping that the capital of Cebu province will be granted with a more relaxed classification, Ferro said police officers will continue enforcing strict health protocols as part of the government’s efforts to curb the transmission of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
“I am hopeful and praying mugraduate nata sa MECQ para we could move on, but di ta magkompyansa and angay ta magsunod sa mga batok nga protocols,” said Ferro.
(I am hopeful and praying we will graduate from MECQ so we could move on, but even then, let’s not be complacent and let’s continue to follow protocols)
“We will not lower our guards down in order to prevent another spike of COVID-19 cases here,” he added.
As of July 30, data from the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) showed that Cebu City has documented close to 9,000 COVID-19 cases.
Of this number, 493 were mortalities while 5,159 were recoveries. /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.
