CCPO chief reminds public about the importance of staying home

Police personnel continue to man a checkpoint in Baragay Suba, Cebu City to discourage residents from leaving their homes this Saturday morning, June 27, 2020. | CDNDigital file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Those who do not have important things to do outside as well as those who do not have quarantine passes should stay inside their homes despite the general community quarantine (GCQ) status of Cebu City.

This is what Police Colonel Josefino Ligan, chief of CCPO, would want the public to be reminded of after the police arrested a total of 355 GCQ protocol violators on the first day of the GCQ status of Cebu City.

Read: 74 violators nabbed on 1st day of Cebu City’s GCQ

In a phone interview, CCPO Chief Ligan said that most of the arrested persons did not have quarantine passes with them, which was still needed to be able to go out to public places.

He said that most of the individuals when asked also admitted that they thought it was all right for them to go out to public areas after the announcement of the GCQ status.

“The people thought that GCQ means they can go out even without quarantine passes. When they were apprehended, they were disappointed na abi nila GCQ libre na sila. But no, we will have to sustain the gains sa atong nakuha for the past month nga ni minus atong active case,” said Ligan.

(The people thought that GCQ means they can go out even without quarantine passes. When they were apprehended, they were disappointed because they thought that they could do what they would want to do. But no, we will have to sustain the gains that we achieved for the past month where we managed to lessen the active cases.)

According to Ligan, the only way to maintain lower cases of the virus is to limit the number of people going out which is why quarantine passes are needed to go out to public places.

Read: Use of Cebu City’s Q passes still a must under GCQ

On another issue, Ligan said he directed all the station commanders of CCPO to closely monitor the malls in the city after several reports reached his office that malls were full packed on Saturday, August 1.

He said the violation that would usually be committed inside the malls if more people flock inside would be the social distancing rule.

Although some commanders with the largest malls under their area denied that there were too many people entering the malls as per their monitoring on Saturday, Ligan said they would continue to conduct close monitoring as these things could usually go unnoticed./dbs

Read: 520 violators; more people in malls on 1st day of GCQ in Cebu City