Cebu City police prepare to launch Oplan Bulabog on Monday night. | CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — A total of 220 violators, including 29 rescued minors, were rounded up during Thursday night’s Oplan Bulabog in Cebu City.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Wilbert Parilla, deputy director for operations of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said that most of the violations still fall in the failure to follow the curfew ordinance, which is from 11 pm to 4 am.
Parilla said they noticed that the public has already shown signs of complacency with the existing health protocols. He partly blamed this on their failure to hold Oplan Bulabog operations the past few weeks or right after typhoon Odette battered Cebu last December.
With the surge of the COVID-19 cases in Cebu City, Parilla said that they will continue to strictly implement Oplan Bulabog especially now that they already have 114 augmentation forces from the Regional Mobile Force Battalion (RMFB-7).
Parilla added that the city was supposed to get 150 augmentation forces but only 114 police officers were turned over as some of them were from other provinces while some were isolated due to the damage caused by typhoon Odette.
As of Thursday, January 20, the Department of Health in Central Visayas logged 994 new COVID-19 cases in Cebu City, which brings the total number of active cases in the city to 5,357.
Parilla said the surge is ‘alarming’.
To help address this, Parilla said they will start their recorrida as early as 10 pm to make sure that the public would be aware of the curfew hours and that establishments will close before 11 pm.
He also vowed to ensure police monitoring for 24 hours with the help of the augmentation forces and assured police visibility 24/7.
For the violators, Parilla said they will have to pay P1,000 as a fine or opt to do community service.
“Unlike man gyud before, ang atoang police are multitasking na. Right after nga mag conduct sila og recorrida, Bulabog, mubalik nasad sila sa anti-criminality. Mao na nga naay span of time nga mabyaan nato ang atoang Bulabog and implementation sa curfew,” Parilla said.
(Unlike before, our police are now multitasking. Right after the conduct of recorrida and Bulabog, they will go back to their anti-criminality functions. That is why there is a span of time that we will not be able to conduct Bulabog and the implementation of the curfew.)
With the additional police personnel in Cebu City, officials here are hoping that they will be able to lessen the COVID-19 transmission. /rcg
READ: Cebu City cops to reimplement Oplan Bulabog starting Jan. 10