BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has approved the suspension of the trips of locally stranded individuals (LSIs) to Region VI for two weeks effective Sunday, June 28 to curb spread of COVID-19.
“Yes, I approve a suspension of LSI repatriation to Regions 6 and [8] for two weeks starting today,” Lorenzana said.
“Bacolod and Iloilo being the main ports and seaports that receive these LSIs. For Region 8, the whole region because apart from air and water transport it also gets LSIs by land transport,” he said.
Lorenzana explained they have to implement the halt because the LSIs are the ones bringing the virus to the provinces.
“The data from Bacolod and Iloilo City bear this out. The LGUs (local government units) asked for the suspension. We will have to come up with a better procedure to prevent this from happening,” Lorenzana said.
Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson of Negros Occidental earlier asked the national Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for a two-week halt on the entry of Negrense locally stranded individuals (LSIs) arriving on sea vessels from Manila to enable to provincial and local governments to declog their quarantine facilities.
Negros Occidental subjects all incoming passengers by air and sea to reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests (RT-PCR).
About 500 Negrense LSIs were expected to arrive in the province from Manila and Cebu yesterday, Lacson said.
“We have to get the (local government units) to agree to receive them. Their problem is that their quarantine facilities are limited and they don’t want to be overwhelmed,” Lorenzana said.
The quarantine facilities of the provincial government as well as those of the different local government units have been overwhelmed by returning LSIs.
Results of RT-PCR tests in the province also showed that most of those who were tested positive were LSIs coming home to Negros Occidental.
Earlier, Malacañang said the government suspended the trips for LSIs to address concerns of local officials about the spread of COVID-19 in the provinces./PN
