ILOILO City – Sixty-one local government units (LGUs) across Western Visayas temporarily banned the arrival of locally stranded individuals (LSIs) from mid-December to the first week of January next month.
These LGUs imposed moratorium on specific dates approved by the Western Visayas Regional Inter-Agency Task Force (RIATF) through their respective resolutions.
The province of Negros Occidental had the most number of LGUs that imposed a moratorium – 20.
These were the cities of Bago, La Carlota, Himamaylan, Victorias, La Carlota, Sipalay, Talisay, and the towns of Calatrava, Cauayan, Candoni, Hinigaran, Ilog, Isabela, La Castellana, Moises Padilla, Murcia, Pontevedra, Isabela, and Valladolid.
The city of Bacolod, an independent city, also enforced a moratorium.
In Iloilo province, 18 LGUs temporarily suspended LSI arrivals. These were the component city of Passi, Leganes, Anilao, Ajuy, Barotac Viejo, Batad, Carles, Dueñas, Janiuay, Lemery, Oton, Pavia, Pototan, San Enrique, San Joaquin, Sara, and Tigbauan.
Meanwhile, 13 LGUs in Antique also imposed a moratorium – Tibao, Tobias Fornier, Sebaste, Caluya, Hamtic, Anini-y, Belison, Culasi, Patnongon, San Jose, San Remegio, Sibalom, and Valderrama.
The province Capiz, on the other hand, had six towns that stopped accepting LSIs – Dumalag, Jamindan, Maayon, Panit-an, Pilar, and Sapian.
In Aklan, four towns also stopped the return of LSIs. These were Balete, Kalibo, Makato, and Malay.
Aside from LSIs, there were 23 LGUs in Western Visayas whose request for moratorium on returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) have also been approved by the regional task force.
These LGUs were Leganes, Dueñas,Oton, Tigbauan, San Joaquin, Badiangan, Barotac Viejo, Concepcion, Barotac Nuevo, Anilao, and Passi City from Iloilo province; La Carlota, Himamaylan, Bacolod City, Candoni, Valladolid, Hinigaran and Isabela in Negros Occidental; San Jose, Antique; and Dumalag, Panitan, and Maayon in Capiz.
In asking for a travel moratorium, the LGUs cited reasons like disinfection, decongestion and reorganization of quarantine facilities and reprieve for frontliners deployed to manage the arrivals of repatriates in the province.
As of Dec. 28, Western Visayas had a total of 21,449 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections.
Of the total cases, 851 were active, 19,946 recovered and 646 died./PN
