Mayor Cortes asks help to monitor cemeteries

Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes. CDN Digital photo | Mary Rose Sagarino

MANDAUE CITY, Cebu—Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes is encouraging barangay captains here to deploy personnel in  cemeteries to help monitor and implement health protocols.

Though there are police personnel deployed in different cemeteries, Cortes said it is still expected that there would be many who would be visiting the graves of their loved ones on Thursday, October 28, 2021, which is the last day before the closure of all the city’s cemeteries.

The city’s seven public and private cemeteries will be closed starting October 29 to November 2, 2021, in accordance to the IATF guidelines, from the previous October 31 to November 2.

Buddy Alain Ybañez, head of the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office, said a composite team composed of personnel from the Mandaue City Police Office, Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue, Bureau of Fire and Protection, and CDRRMO are already deployed in cemeteries to implement peace and order and safety protocols.

To avoid crowding cemeteries, Cortes suggests praying for departed loved ones from home.

The Mayor said that even though the number of COVID-19 cases in the city has decreased, this should not be reason to be complacent.

As of Tuesday, October 26, 2021, Mandaue has 121 active cases based on the COVID-19 bulletin board of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7).

/bmjo