ILOILO City – Border control checkpoints in this southern city are being revived. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections continue to mount.
“We have community transmission possibly due to the Delta variant,” according to Mayor Jerry Treñas. “As long as there is movement of people and there are unvaccinated people, cases will continue to go up.”
Policemen are again manning border controls points. According to Police Colonel Uldarico Garbanzos, Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) director, they would be stricter with health protocols.
Only authorized persons outside of residence will be allowed entry into the city and those with essential purposes such as:
* work
* medical needs
* accessing government services
* transport of goods and/or construction materials
* humanitarian purposes
* receiving first/second dose of COVID-19 vaccine
* returning overseas Filipino workers, locally stranded individuals (returning residents) and authorized persons outside of residence
* those availing of the walk-in COVID-19 vaccination on Thursdays
Essential travelers may present their valid identification cards or documents that will show their essential purpose for entering the city such as company/office ID; proof of affiliation; practice of profession; insofar as practicable or wherever applicable, certificate of employment/travel pass/certification issued by their employers/human resource managers indicating specific dates and/or hours of work such employee is obliged to report on duty, among others.
Treñas also instructed the Iloilo City Compliance Team to strengthen the monitoring and enforcement of minimum health protocols in barangays.
If cases continue to rise, Treñas said, he might require quarantine passes.
Border controls, however, will be suspended every Thursday when the city opens its vaccination sites to non-residents.
Curfew, on the other hand, is now from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Also, starting yesterday for one week, those not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 won’t be allowed to enter city hall.
Yesterday, from specimens sent by the Iloilo City Uswag Laboratory to the Philippine Genome Center in Manila, 11 were found to have the Delta variant of the virus causing COVID-19, two have the Alpha variant and four have the Beta variant.
All of them already recovered, according to Treñas, but they would be subjected to another reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test./PN
