ILOILO City – It will be up to local government units to direct house-to-house searches for individuals afflicted with coronavirus disease 2019.
“We will not lead the search,” Police Colonel Gilbert Gorero, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office (PRO) 6, clarified.
Gorero explained that police officers will not be the ones to trace COVID-19 patients under home quarantine, but are in sync when it comes to the house-to-house plan earlier announced by the Department of Interior and Local Government.
“Local authorities and health workers are the ones who will lead the transfer of COVID positive patients from their homes to government quarantine facilities, which we call Oplan Kalinga,” said Gorero.
Police presence is merely to provide support or assistance in the transport of patients and the implementation of lockdown in the affected area, he added.
Earlier, Philippine National Police chief General Archie Gamboa likened the proposed controversial initiative to tracking down a criminal.
“This plan is like locating a criminal and when you have located one, you have to find his accomplices,” Gamboa told members of the media during his visit at the PRO-6 headquarters in Camp Martin Delgado in this city.
Gamboa’s statement, however, drew mixed reactions.
Various sectors expressed alarm over the plan, saying it would violate the constitutional right of persons to be secure in their homes.
Gorero, for his part, assured that police will just “help and assist” as local officials and health workers will identify and search for patients who need to be transferred to quarantine facilities.
He explained that under the Oplan Kalinga, every local government unit – either a component or highly-urbanized city – are mandated to form an epidemiological surveillance unit to lead the house-to-house search.
“Our police personnel will only serve as security and assist the team in transporting COVID-19 patients,” Gorero said.
To recall, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) discouraged mild or asymptomatic COVID patients from going on home quarantine, saying it could further spread the virus
Patient, according to the IATF-EID, cannot isolate themselves at home if they don’t have their own room with bathroom and toilet, and if they are living with persons who are vulnerable to COVID-19 like senior citizens and people with comorbidities./PN
