DILG sends more troops to Cebu to enforce lockdown

More police and military troops would be deployed to Cebu City after it was put on lockdown amid the increase in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said yesterday, as he noted the need to control the movement of people under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the city.

“The entire Cebu City is on lockdown, so it’s under ECQ, and we will add more police and troops from the Armed Forces of the Philippines so that they can help, because we see that there is really a need for people to be quarantined in their homes, given that there are some 4,000 active cases here and it keeps rising,” Año said in Filipino in an interview with ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo. The chief of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said they want to avoid a situation where not only hospital facilities are congested but bodies are also

piling up, similar to Metro Manila in early April.

He noted that healthcare facilities are likely to be strained, thereby increasing the likelihood of infection among frontline workers, which the government is trying to avoid.

Cebu City was tagged as a “special concern area” due to the rise in COVID-19 cases that prompted President Duterte on Monday night to assign Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, a retired military general, to oversee the response situation in the area and to use all powers of the government’s task force to contain the virus.

Aside from Cebu City, Año said he and COVID-19 chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. would also assess the situation in Tacloban City and Leyte province due to the surge in cases there.

Año added that they would also look into allegations that the return of locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) led to the spike of COVID-19 cases in those areas.

“There was a sudden surge there… so we will also talk to local government officials there and we will look at the situation on the ground and what we can do to help Leyte,” he said.

The DILG secretary said they want stricter regulations on returning LSIs and OFWs to their home provinces, especially those who slip through unnoticed like hitching rides on cargo ships.

“While we’re organizing these LSIs who will be brought to the province, there are those who slip through – perhaps one or two of them – who are not subjected to quarantine, that’s why we will be stricter now on LSIs,” he said.

No martial law

There is no martial law in Cebu City despite the deployment of soldiers to enforce quarantine measures, Malacañang said yesterday.

The southern city reverted to the strictest lockdown scenario last June 15 as its healthcare capacity is in danger of being overwhelmed by the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

The designation of Cimatu and the stronger presence of government troops have sparked fears that martial law will be declared in Cebu City, which now has more than 4,400 cases of the new coronavirus.

“This is not martial law. This has been decided upon by the Supreme Court, and this is as far as enforcing the ECQ in Cebu (City) is concerned,” Roque told ABS-CBN News Channel.

“Normally, we have the police enforcing it but if the police is not enough, then the Armed Forces can also enforce the lockdown,” he added.

Roque said the SC ruled in Sanlakas versus Executive Secretary that the government can order soldiers to patrol shopping malls and assume other civilian duties.

Only essential services like healthcare and food production, exportoriented businesses and business process outsourcing are allowed to operate in areas under ECQ.

Now that Cebu City is under ECQ, only one member per household is allowed to go out to buy essentials, according to the Palace spokesman.

“(If it’s) just too many that’s allowed to go out... that defeats the purpose of an ECQ,” he said, adding that about 200,000 residents in the city have quarantine passes.

Roque said Cimatu is expected to make recommendations and to implement what he thinks should be done in one week.

Duterte, Roque said, would issue executive orders to give legal validity to Cimatu’s actions, if necessary.

“(Cimatu) has to do whatever has to be done. There’s now a hierarchy of laws that we’re following here. And, of course, the mandate of General Cimatu comes from the President himself backed up by an executive order. He can exercise all powers that the President can exercise; he has been the beneficiary of delegated authority from the President,” Roque said.

“He gets to exercise all the extraordinary powers of the Office of the President in dealing with the pandemic in Cebu City,” he added.

‘Emerging hotspots’

The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday announced that Cebu City and five other areas in the Visayas – Cebu province, Ormoc City, Southern Leyte, Leyte and Samar – are “emerging hotspots” for COVID-19.

“Many of the cases that we have recorded recently are from Regions 7 and 8. It means that the cases there are increasing; therefore, we need to focus more attention there to stop the spread of the virus,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in Filipino at a press briefing.

Vergeire, however, gave assurance that the DOH and the national government had already deployed assistance to these places to contain the spread of the disease.