BY IME SORNITO and GLENDA TAYONA
ILOILO City – Beginning April 1 Panay Island will be under an island-wide quarantine in an effort to shield it from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
To effectively do this, the provincial governments of Iloilo, Antique, Aklan, and Capiz agreed to harmonize the border restrictions they separately imposed beginning yesterday.
The nearby island province of Guimaras will also be quarantined.
The Panay-wide quarantine until April 14 was agreed during yesterday’s emergency meeting of the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC) here headed by Director Jose Roberto Nuñez of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) Region 6.
The unified rules and regulations for the border restrictions would be released before April 1, said Nuñez.
Harmonizing the rules aims to ease the inconvenience that the restrictions would bring on people, especially those crossing provincial boarders due to work and business, among others.
But people should still observe precautionary measures such as social distancing, among others, stressed Nuñez.
For the meantime, each provincial government would be observing the restrictions they imposed beginning yesterday until March 31, said Nuñez.
Hopefully, he said, this period would be enough for persons under monitoring (PUMs) in the provinces to have been cleared.
As of yesterday, Panay Island and the rest of Western Visayas remained free from COVID-19, reported the Department of Health (DOH) Region 6.
It was agreed that the people of Iloilo City and Guimaras could freely cross the Iloilo Straight but that Guimaras should close its backdoor to block the entry of people from Negros Island. (There was one positive COVID-19 case in Negros Oriental; the patient died on Sunday.)
Goods should also be able to move freely within Panay and across Guimaras subject to quarantine inspections.
Yesterday’s RDRRMC meeting at the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Region 6 office was attended by governors Arthur Defensor Jr. of Iloilo, Rhodora Cadiao of Antique, Samuel Gumarin of Guimaras, Florencio Miraflores of Aklan, and Iloilo City’s Mayor Jerry Treñas who pushed for the harmonization of the border restrictions.
Capiz’s Gov. Esteban Evan Contreras was not able to attend the meeting. He was observing self-quarantine following a trip to Manila on March 11. He sent a representative to the meeting.
Also agreed yesterday were the following:
* OCD Region 6 would request the 3rd Infantry Division of Philippine Army for air assistance in transporting personal protective equipment (PPE) from the DOH central office to Region 6
* DOH Region 6 would form a technical working group to look into the improvised materials as alternative for PPE
* for the Philippine Ports Authority to verify with its central office regarding the travel goods without container vans
* for the police to take the lead in patrolling borders and identified strategic areas
* for provincial disaster risk reduction and management offices to directly coordinate with the police provincial offices for checkpoints/patrol along borders of provinces and local government units
* for OCD to take the lead in disseminating information on border restrictions / community quarantine
Also present at the meeting yesterday were NEDA-6 director Ro-Ann Bacal, Department of Interior and Local Government regional director Ariel Iglesia, Department of Tourism regional director Helen Catalbas, and Police Regional Office-6 director Rene Pamuspusan./PN
