MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte kept Bacolod City and the rest of Western Visayas under a modified general community quarantine (MGCQ, “medium risk”).
In a taped public address yesterday, Duterte approved the recommendation of Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease to still put the region under “medium risk” MGCQ beginning Aug. 1 to 15.
Duterte also rejected calls from concerned physicians in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City to place the latter under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) for at least two weeks due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) community transmissions.
To recall, Dr. Ma. Ivy Malata, president of the Philippine Medical Association (PMA)-Canlaon Medical Society, and Dr. Roberto Puerta, president of PMA-Negros Occidental Medical Society wrote a letter to Duterte, expressing the need to bring back the strictest form of quarantine in the city.
They said an ECQ would enable the healthcare system to recuperate and give the local government unit time to institute and implement interventions, especially with how locally stranded individuals and overseas Filipino workers are being handled.
Their call, however, was subsequently opposed by Secretary Carlito Galvez, the chief implementer of the national government’s policies on COVID-19.
The ECQ return, according to Galvez, is impractical. He reiterated the socio-economic impact of locking down an entire town or city.
He compared the situation in Bacolod from Metro Manila or Cebu, where there were thousands more COVID-19 cases and more fatalities.
Business groups in Bacolod were also against the proposal to bring back the city to ECQ.
Frank Carbon, chief executive officer of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry Business Industry, said the lockdown imposed since March to May forced almost 50 percent of business establishments in the city to close. He feared that more establishments would be shuttered should another lockdown happen.
Carbon said they are amenable to sealing off a particular area or barangay with COVID-19 positive cases but not the entire city.
Bacolod City, Iloilo province, Iloilo City, Capiz, Negros Occidental, Aklan, Guimaras, and, Antique have been under varying levels of community quarantine since March – ECQ, GCQ and MGCQ.
Data from the Department of Health yesterday showed Region 6’s COVID-19 cases at 1,244 – Aklan, six; Antique, 15; Capiz, six; Guimaras, one; Iloilo province, 87; Negros Occidental, 48; Bacolod City, 108; Iloilo City, 91; and repatriates, 882./PN
