ILOILO City’s Mayor Jerry Treñas appealed to the Inter-agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to amend its guidelines on physical distancing to allow private motorcycle riders to ferry passengers who are members of their household.
It is a reasonable appeal.
It doesn’t make sense that people who are living, eating and sleeping together in the same house should be apprehended for riding together in a motorcycle – or in the same vehicle for that matter – for supposed violation of the rules on physical distancing set by the IATF.
People living in the same house don’t obviously observe physical distancing when they are in their own house, so it really makes no sense at all that they would be prevented from riding together in a private car or in a motorcycle.
We’re heard of cases where policemen manning checkpoints had forced motorcycle riders to turn around and leave their own relatives behind who are also working as medical frontliners.
This physical distancing rule inside private vehicles and motorcycles should only apply to those who are not part of the household. This could be easily checked by simple identification verification. We pity our motorcycle backriding frontliners who are forced to get down at checkpoints.
If and when most of the country goes from Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) to General Community Quarantine (GCQ) where people can already go out and attend to their livelihood, the rule on physical distancing will remain in effect. It is therefore important for the IATF to review and simplify its guidelines on physical distancing to allow citizens to finally attend to their livelihood.
