BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City –The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in Negros Occidental has intercepted four people in the town of Calatrava following their arrival from Cebu.
PCG-Negros Occidental chief, Lieutenant Commander Jansen Benjamin, said concerned citizens phoned both the PCG substation in Calatrava and the local municipal police informing them that a boat carrying four people landed at the town’s Loly Beach Resort in Barangay San Isidro.
Benjamin said local officials managed to hold all four of the passengers, while their boat managed to escape and return back to Cebu Island.
However, the PCG immediately contacted their counterparts in Cebu Island, and the boat’s captain was later nabbed by PCG personnel in Toledo, Cebu.
The PCG in Cebu later reported that the boat captain was ordered by a barangay official in Toledo City to ferry the four, whom the official claimed to be his relatives. PCG officials are now investigating the allegations made by the boat captain against the barangay official.
Meanwhile, Benjamin said the four individuals that were intercepted have been transported to the municipality’s quarantine facility, and they would undergo testing through real time-polymerase reaction.
Cebu City, with 2,810 COVID-19 infections as of June 14, has already surpassed Quezon City as the area with the highest cases in the country./PN
