Cebu Province to appeal GCQ status extension

CEBU, Philippines —  Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia will appeal to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) to lift Cebu Province’s general community quarantine (GCQ) status.

The IATF has placed the whole of Region 7 under GCQ, which essentially extended the classification of the province, as well as Lapu-Lapu City, which took effect on May 20.

President Rodrigo Duterte announced evening on May 28 that Cebu Province will transition to modified GCQ but IATF, in Resolution No. 40 released yesterday, said the province will remain under GCQ.

"We should move on to the next level or even beyond that because we are ready for that," Garcia said yesterday during a consultative meeting with mayors of the province.

She said transitioning to MGCQ will help the province’s economy get back on its feet. This is because leisure and tourism activities, albeit with limitations, are allowed under MGCQ. These are prohibited under GCQ.

In fact, the meeting with the mayors was intended initially to plan for a transition to MGCQ.

Garcia said she has already spoken with the regional IATF about the appeal.

"I have already talked to the co-chair of our regional IATF, both Dr. Bernadas and PD Lucero, that we will appeal because this is not what the province intends to do. Di ta magpabilin nga GCQ," Garcia said.

Bernadas is chief of the Department of Health - 7 while Atty. Ian Kenneth Lucero is provincial director of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Region 7.

As discussed during yesterday’s meeting, tourism activities such as island hopping and canyoneering may reopen if IATF approves the appeal.

The regulations will be finalized during Garcia’s meeting with representatives from the ecotourism sector on Tuesday, June 2.

A separate meeting on Wednesday, June 3, will finalize protocols on public transport. The meeting will tackle whether or not to implement the one person per tricycle policy, the resumption of backriding for motorcycles, and the plying of PUVs to their usual routes in the province’s cities and municipalities.

Meanwhile, the province, with the approval of DOH-7, will also start implementing new protocols for testing contacts of positive cases.

Only those manifesting Influenza-Like Illnesses (ILI), Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), and level-one contacts of positive cases will be swabbed for COVID-19.

Bernadas explained during the meeting that level one contacts are individuals that interacted with positive cases with one meter or less distance for 10 minutes or more within 14 days prior to the patient's isolation. JMO (FREEMAN)