BACOLOD City – The week-long travel moratorium between Iloilo City and Province, and Negros Island is expected to result in millions worth of revenue and opportunity losses among the affected sectors, prompting a business leader here to call for government aid.
“It will hurt more the livelihood of the workers in the local shipping industry,” said Frank Carbon, chief executive officer of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Carbon, a fast craft operator, asserted that it would affect the livelihood of people making a living at the port, like vendors, pedicab, and tricycle drivers.
In Resolution 6-C, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) placed Iloilo City under the stricter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from May 23 to 31, following a surge in the city’s coronavirus disease 2019 cases.
The declaration resulted in a moratorium on sea travel from May 25 to 31 through the ports in Iloilo City and Dumangas town, Iloilo province as stated in the advisories issued by the Philippine Coast Guard and the Western Visayas Regional IATF, and the Regional Task Force on COVID-19.
However, the movement of cargoes will continue during the period, according to the Coast Guard Stations in Iloilo and Bacolod.
Carbon urged the local government to provide the workers and those affected in other sectors with subsistence for the next seven days.
“We have to bring in to open that there is a cost-benefit trade-off and that the government must pay the cost to lessen the pain of losing their source of daily subsistence,” he added.
In this city, Mayor Evelio Leonardia also issued Executive Order 27, series of 2021, suspending any mode of travel between cities of Bacolod and Iloilo from May 25 to 31, or may earlier be lifted or further extended, while Iloilo City under MECQ.
This is except for the delivery of essential goods which remains unhampered subject to the health and safety protocols, he added.(PNA/PN)
