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CEBU CITY, Philippines — Since early January 2022, police here no longer apprehended health protocol violators.
But if an individual continues to ignore warnings, they might be arrested.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Janette Rafter, deputy director for operations of the Cebu City Police Office, said this after Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama gave instructions to police to only educate protocol violators and not apprehend them.
READ: Rama to Cebu City police: Don’t apprehend face mask violators, focus instead on other crimes
Rafter said that since early January 2022 or when the restrictions were eased in Cebu City, they were no longer apprehending health protocol violators as they noticed that the general public is already compliant with health protocols.
“We have two best practices, amoang Oplan Bulabog and Oplan Recorrida. That was more focused on education and dissemination sa minimum public health standards,” Rafter said.
“Before, during the lockdowns, we had a lot of cases. That was when our Oplan Bulabog and Recorrida were more [focused] on apprehensions because we really had to tighten our security,” she added.
Since the city’s restrictions have been eased, Rafter said that these mentioned practices were converted to a more anti-criminality campaign.
She, however, said that if one continuously disregards warnings of the police, they will be forced to apprehend them.
Rafter added that the city police gives equal importance to their implementation of existing health protocols and their effort against criminality.
Rafter said that they have daily monitoring of the adherence to health protocols, especially the wearing of face masks. She estimates at least 5 percent of the entirety still fail to wear face masks, especially when they are outdoors.
/bmjo
READ: Face mask requirement stays in Cebu City