SAN JOSE, Antique – For the third time, the Department of Education (DepEd) has extended the use of schools in this province as quarantine facilities for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), giving additional time for local chief executives to prepare their respective municipal isolation centers.
Libertad Mayor Mary Jean Te said DepEd Antique Division superintendent Dr. Felisa Beriong confirmed the use of schools as quarantine facilities has been extended anew until July 15.
“We are supposed to end our use of schools as isolation facilities on June 30 but superintendent Beriong has informed me of the DepEd’s new decision,” Te, who is also president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) in this province, said during the meeting with Gov. Rhodora Cadiao and the Inter-Agency Task Force for COVID-19 on Monday.
The DepEd initially allowed local government units to use schools as isolation facilities from April 1 to June 1. Upon the request of the LMP, however, it was extended until June 30.
Belison Mayor Christopher Piccio, for his part, said there are 200 locally stranded individuals (LSIs) undergoing quarantine in a DepEd school in his municipality.
Piccio added he intends to request DepEd to allow them to continue using the Belison Central School as isolation facility until such time there will already be a vaccine for COVID-19.
Cadiao, meanwhile, said the said the provincial government welcomed the advisory of the Department of the Interior and Local Government officer-in-charge-regional director Juan Jovan Ingeniero on the suspension of trips of all LSIs bound for Region 6 which started on June 28.
“It is a good thing because we will have a respite for two weeks,” she said during the meeting.
However, mayors in this province should be ready to attend their LSIs when the temporary suspension will be lifted.
The operation of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Antique Airport in this province will also be temporarily stopped.
PAL transported a total of 82 passengers from Metro Manila last June 28 while 87 LSIs in this province boarded the return flight the same day. (With a report from PNA/PN)
