Cebu City Police Office | contributed photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City cops expressed readiness to control the possible influx of people in various establishments following the easement of quarantine restrictions here.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Wilbert Parilla, deputy director for operations of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said that one of the reasons why the COVID-19 cases here dropped was due to the city’s strict implementation of health protocols.
As of October 25, the Department of Health in Central Visayas has logged just four new cases in Cebu City bringing the total number of active cases to 326.
The Inter-Agency Task Force has recently placed Cebu under Alert Level 2 which is the second most relaxed quarantine classification.
Because of this, the IATF has also eased the restrictions such as the adjustment of new curfew hours, allowing minors to go outside, the opening of cinemas, and dropping the need for real-time polymerase reaction (RT-PCR), antigen, or saliva test as a requirement for domestic travelers to enter the city.
READ: Fully vaccinated travelers can now enter Cebu City without need for COVID-19 tests
Parilla said that despite the minimal police deployment that they have assigned to implement the minimum health standard protocols, they were still able to impose the guidelines in different areas of the city with the help of the force multipliers.
The depletion of the police force was due to their deployment in the different cemeteries in the city for security measures.
On Tuesday, October 26, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has denied the request of several local government units to open their cemeteries from October 29 to November 2.
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Pending the directives from the Cebu City government, Parilla said that they are ready to implement the new order of the DILG.
Parilla is also hopeful that this directive will be fully implemented as a test for the coming holidays such as Christmas and Sinulog.
The city is also now allowing minors who are 15 years old and below to go outside based on the new directives issued on Monday, October 25 by Cebu City Acting Mayor Michael Rama. Cinemas are also now allowed to reopen. /rcg
READ: Cinemas open, minors can now go out in Cebu City, but…