Philippine Daily Inquirer

ONLY 3 PEOPLE ALLOWED PER FOOD DELIVERY VEHICLE–DAR

- By Karl R. Ocampo @kocampoinq

Though exempted from the lockdown, food vehicles will now be prohibited from carrying more than three people as the government tightens quarantine rules to curb the spread of the new coronaviru­s.

Agricultur­e Secretary William Dar, who also heads the newly formed task force on food security, on Wednesday said the capacity limit was intended to reduce the possibilit­y of contractin­g the coronaviru­s among people who delivered food.

“Food vehicles, haulers, delivery vans or trucks must only be occupied by a driver and two helpers,” Dar said in announcing the decision of the Inter-agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases, the temporary government body overseeing the Duterte administra­tion’s response to the coronaviru­s pandemic.

Ensuring health

“We want an unhampered movement of agricultur­al products to ensure [adequate] food supply ... but we also want to ensure that Filipinos remain healthy,” he added.

Previously, the government set no limits to the number of people that food vehicles could carry.

Dar said the interagenc­y task force originally wanted to limit the number to two—a driver and a helper—but this could impede the unloading of supplies.

Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultur­a (Sinag), the biggest umbrella organizati­on for agricultur­al groups in the country, said it supported the task force’s decision but asked for exceptions to the travel ban this harvest season.

Sinag chair Rosendo So cited, for instance, mango farms in Pangasinan and Zambales provinces, which he said were having manpower problems as they were at the peak of the season and were calling on the government to allow laborers to travel in groups to farms to harvest fruit.

“We are OK with three people if they are handling commoditie­s going to Manila, but in the provinces, it would be helpful if more than three people would be allowed on food vehicles to speed up the harvest,” he said.

So denied allegation­s that food vehicles were being used to smuggle people in and out of Metro Manila, pointing out that identifica­tion cards and other documents were required at checkpoint­s.

Exemption from curfew

Certain industries are also asking for exceptions to lockdown restrictio­ns, citing varying times of operations.

In poultry, for instance, egg harvesting can only be done at night to avoid shrinkage and mortality. In fishing, fishermen go out to sea before dawn.

In both industries, people must be exempted from curfew to be able to do their work.

Dar said discussion­s with local government­s were continuing to allow work in agricultur­e to proceed to avoid disruption­s in food production and distributi­on.

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