Cordillera under GCQ, except Ifugao

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines —  Beginning today, five provinces of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) are under general community quarantine (GCQ) until May 31.

These are the provinces of Apayao, Kalinga, Mountain Province, Abra and Benguet, including Baguio City.

Only Ifugao is under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) as the province showed an increase in the number of cases.

As of 8 p.m. of May 13, Ifugao had 3,676 confirmed cases with 701 of these active, 2,960 recoveries and 15 COVID-related deaths.

Earlier, Benguet, together with the provinces of Apayao and Cagayan were supposed to be under MECQ until May 23 to halt the spike of COVID cases in these areas.

The Benguet provincial government earlier recommended MECQ status for the province after noting a continuous rise in cases and the recent COVID-related death of a three-year-old.

Apayao as of May 10 had 989 confirmed cases.

Also placed under MECQ until May 31 are Santiago City and Quirino province in Region 2 and Zamboanga City in Region 9.

The local government units of the five provinces of the Cordilleras together with the LGUs of Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya in Region 2; Batangas and Quezon in Region 4-A; Puerto Princesa in Region 4-B; Iligan City in Region 10; Davao City in Region 11 and Lanao del Sur in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao will start imposing restrictions under the GCQ guidelines starting today.