Mayor Cortes to IATF: Let Mandaue remain under MGCQ

Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes is appealing to the IATF to let Mandaue City remain under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) and not place it under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ). | Mary Rose Sagarino

MANDAUE CITY, Philippines — The Mandaue City government has sent an appeal on Wednesday, July 28, 2021, to the Regional Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (RIATF-MEID or RIATF) for the city to remain under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) status.

The RIATF recommended to put Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City under MECQ starting August 1 until August 15 amid the increasing number of COVID-19 cases there.

Mayor Jonas Cortes said it would be unfair to place the city under modified enhance community quarantine (MECQ), which is two steps higher from the city’s current status, considering that the city only had 749 COVID-19 active cases of the virus, the lowest in the region excluding Siquijor.

Cortes said the city also had the highest percentage of eligible population vaccinated at 31.26 percent of first dosers and 15.42 percent of second dosers.

According to data, the Capacity Utilization Rate of the Cebu Private Hospitals is at 62.4 percent as of July 26, 2021. Of the total COVID-19 patients currently admitted at the private hospitals, 38.3 percent of the patients declared themselves as Cebu Province residents, 35.4 percent of the patients were from Cebu City, while the remaining percentage were divided among Lapu-Lapu City, Mandaue City, and outside Cebu Island.

Mayor Cortes said despite the increase of COVID-19 cases, the city was able to manage it and had also implemented immediate mitigation plans.

Cortes stressed that going back to modified enhance community quarantine (MECQ) would have an economic impact, not just on the city, but all over Cebu Island, considering that there would be no public transportation allowed, and the city is the gateway to the north and south of Cebu and Lapu-Lapu City. 

He also noted that most of the manufacturing companies were located in the city.

“As the record speaks for itself, angayan og performance ang Mandaue. Di man gud mahimo nga ma isolate ang Mandaue ug Lapu-Lapu sa entire probinsya. Can you imagine sa economy? Ang airport naa sa Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue ang corridor sa Metro Cebu, Mandaue ang nag host sa production sa essential goods. Mao na unfair, nga ako lang unta nga datos ang basehanan,” said Cortes.

(As the record speaks for itself, Mandaue has a good performance. We cannot isolate Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu cities from the entire province. Can you imagine the economy? The airport is is Lapu-Lapuy, Mandaue is the corridor of Metro Cebu, Mandaue hosts the production essential goods. That is why it is so unfair and that they should have based this on our data.)

Cortes said they would not know the IATF’s basis, and how it came up with the recommendation.

The Mayor is hopeful that the RIATF will forward the request to the National IATF and that it will be considered.

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