City Mayor Alfred Romualdez, during a meeting of Tacloban City Task Force on COVID-19 quarantine, said he would assist the 18 health workers from Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center who were infected of the virus. A hotel was designated for them where they will be quarantine.
(TACLOBAN CITY INFORMATON OFFICE)
City Mayor Alfred Romualdez, during a meeting of Tacloban City Task Force on COVID-19 quarantine, said he would assist the 18 health workers from Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center who were infected of the virus. A hotel was designated for them where they will be quarantine. (TACLOBAN CITY INFORMATON OFFICE)
TACLOBAN CITY- In response to meeting called for by Mayor Alfred Romualdez with Tacloban City’s Task Force for COVID – 19, Tacloban City has provided a hotel as an isolation facility for the eighteen EVRMC medical workers who tested positive with this deadly virus.
Mayor Alfred orders LGU Tacloban to move fast and to extend a helping hand to EVRMC since those who tested positive are city residents.
The city has also maintained another hotel as quarantine facility for its medical frontliners from the City Health Office, CDRRMO and Tacloban City Hospital.
It has also rented another separate hotel and utilized two other evacuation centers as quarantine facilities for returning LSIs with no capacity for home quarantine.
“Ang habol ko dito is Tacloban and our immediate concerns here in the city”, Mayor Romualdez explained to the group.
“Kargo natin yan kasi residents yan ng Tacloban. Protect Taclobanons and Tacloban itself from the spread. Use all the resources of the government. Prioritize health workers who tested positive. Test families today,” the mayor added.
(TACLOBAN CITY INFORMATON OFFICE)
ENHANCED PEACE AND ORDER. Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez in an undated photo. Gomez on Thursday (June 11, 2020) said the people and the city government of Ormoc support the enactment into law of the Anti-Terrorism Bill.
(Photo courtesy of Ormoc City government)
ENHANCED PEACE AND ORDER. Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez in an undated photo. Gomez on Thursday (June 11, 2020) said the people and the city government of Ormoc support the enactment into law of the Anti-Terrorism Bill. (Photo courtesy of Ormoc City government)
TACLOBAN CITY – Mayor Richard Gomez has said the people and the local government of Ormoc City support the enactment into law of the Anti-Terrorism Bill to drive economic growth and discourage extremism in the country.
“At a time when there is a pressing need to restart the economy, we ought to project before the international investment community and tourism sector a much-enhanced peace and order environment in the Philippines, which only marginalizes extremist elements in our society, both from within and without,” Gomez said in a brief statement posted on the city government’s Facebook page late Thursday.
He added that the proposed measure has enough safeguards to preserve the people’s democratic space and is comparable, if not better, to similar laws of other member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
“As the city mayor, I believe we need this law. If not now, then when?” Gomez said.
On Tuesday, Malacañang received a copy of the anti-terrorism bill that is now up for President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature.
Under the bill, persons who voluntarily and knowingly join any organization, association, or group of persons knowing that such is a terrorist organization, will suffer imprisonment of 12 years.
Suspected persons can be detained for 14 days without a warrant of arrest with an allowable 10-day extension.
A 60-day surveillance on suspected terrorists can also be launched by the police or the military, with an allowable 30-day extension. (GERICO SABALZA/PNA)
MANDATORY ISOLATION. Red Cross volunteers set up a 30-bed quarantine center for returning residents in Maasin City. The local government on Friday (June 12, 2020) said they will consider home isolation for returning residents and overseas Filipino workers due to the limited capacity of its designated quarantine facilities. (Photo courtesy of Jonas Maco)
MANDATORY ISOLATION. Red Cross volunteers set up a 30-bed quarantine center for returning residents in Maasin City. The local government on Friday (June 12, 2020) said they will consider home isolation for returning residents and overseas Filipino workers due to the limited capacity of its designated quarantine facilities. (Photo courtesy of Jonas Maco)
TACLOBAN CITY – The city government of Maasin in Southern Leyte will consider home isolation for returning residents and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) due to the limited capacity of its designated quarantine facilities.
Following the protocols, all returning residents in the city are subjected to rapid antibody test and those with reactive results will be confined in the city’s isolation area for further testing and monitoring. Those with non-reactive results are sent to designated quarantine facilities for the mandatory 14-day isolation.
In a statement on Friday, Mayor Nacional Mercado said their existing facilities would not be enough to accommodate the influx of locally stranded individuals (LSI) and OFWs, thus the city health office recommends home isolation for returnees.
He said those interested to opt for home isolation must write a request to the city inter-agency task force for Emerging Infectious Disease stating their home address and the reason/s for such preference.
Upon approval of the task force, local health personnel will visit their respective residences to assess and evaluate if they meet the requirements for home isolation or quarantine.
“The LSI or OFW shall be alone in the house, with its own toilet and bath, and available running water in the area. If the house meets the requirements, the Barangay (village) Health Emergency Response Team (BHERT) will now be informed of the returnee’s intention to be put in home isolation for 14-days and the BHERT shall approve the same,” Mercado said.
A village watchman will be assigned in the area to ensure that the returning resident will not go out and no visitor allowed during the 14-day quarantine period.
The local government will also assign a nurse and midwife to daily monitor the returnee’s health condition either personally or via phone.
“The returnee must fill out the monitoring sheet for temperature twice a week and report immediately to the assigned health personnel once he or she developed flu-like symptoms like fever, cough, and sore throat,” Mercado said.
After the LSI or OFW complete the home isolation without any symptoms, a Certificate of Quarantine Completion will be issued by the city health office.
Maasin City, the capital of Southern Leyte, remains free of the coronavirus disease 2019, according to the Department of Health.
Meanwhile, Eastern Visayas has confirmed a total of 90 coronavirus cases, including 34 recoveries and zero death.
(GERICO SABALZA/PNA)
ORMOC CITY- The giant geothermal energy producer has stretched to other places in their charitable works during this coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) crisis aside from their community hosts who have also been receiving help.
Seeing the situation of the Tarangnan town from the neighboring province of Samar, The Lopez-led geothermal power producer Energy Development Corporation (EDC) in Leyte has never put their backs to the communities that are hardly affected by the pandemic even if this does not belong to the list of host communities of the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.
The corroborative efforts between the EDC Leyte’s CSR and crisis management teams resulted to providing aid to around 500 families of Tarangnan town in Samar province, then considered the epicenter of COVID-19 here in the region.
Company CSR head Erwin Magallanes estimated around 500 families have benefited from nearly P200,000 worth of donations which included 50 sacks of rice, canned goods, and bottled water while 50 frontline workers were provided personal protective equipment (PPE) such as N95 and surgical masks and tyvek suits.
“EDC has decided to extend help to the municipality of Tarangnan in Samar even if the location is very far from our site in Ormoc City and Kananga town. Tarangnan has been put on lockdown or enhanced community quarantine since April 29 to prevent the local transmission of the virus in the community. Given its minimal resources as a fourth-class municipality, the town mayor has been requesting and accepting all kinds of help to aid his constituents,” Magallanes said.
As of May 26, 2020, the town has recorded a total of 23 cases, nine of which are active and 14 have recovered.
Taking into account the tightened security measures along the borders to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, personnel from the Philippine Army made the delivery of the goods to the town for which Mayor Arnel Tan and the residents wholeheartedly thanked, Magallanes added.
EDC, together with other Lopez Group of companies along with its employees, has been extending help to the government, especially to the local communities, when the community quarantine was implemented in March wherein number of Filipinos getting infected of the virus started to rise.
EDC’s Leyte geothermal facility currently supplies more than 30 percent of the country’s installed geothermal capacity. It is also responsible for putting EDC and the Philippines on the map as the world’s 3rd largest geothermal producer for over 40 years.
(ELVIE ROMAN ROA)
As of June 11, 23 out of 23 RTR (Returning Tacloban Residents) from San Jose has been cleared after 14-day quarantine period at San Jose District Health Center The rest of the pictures are monitoring visits and tagging of RTRs.
(TACLOBAN CITY HEALTH OFFICE)
As of June 11, 23 out of 23 RTR (Returning Tacloban Residents) from San Jose has been cleared after 14-day quarantine period at San Jose District Health Center The rest of the pictures are monitoring visits and tagging of RTRs. (TACLOBAN CITY HEALTH OFFICE)
Local transmission confirmed in Tacloban, 2 others
BY: ROEL T. AMAZONA
TACLOBAN CITY-The total number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Eastern Visayas has breached to 200 with additional 68 new cases, its biggest record in a single day so far, reported by the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday night.
And the DOH-8 said that there is now a local transmission in the towns of La Paz and Hilongos and here in Tacloban City.
Reports 68 new cases, Ormoc City posted the highest cases with 30 involving locally stranded individuals or LSIs (12), overseas workers (4), two health workers and a local resident, John Paul Roca, the information officer of DOH-8, said.
The city has now 38 COVID-19 cases.
Possible local transmission is also being eyed in the town of La Paz which posted nine cases involving seven local residents who are health workers with two LSIs.
Incidentally, a health worker who works in Lapaz but is a resident of Tacloban City was also confirmed to have been infected by the coronavirus, Roca said.
Also recording new cases were Catbalogan City with nine; Libagon, Southern Leyte,3; Pastrana,2; Tabontabon,1; Tacloban City,1; San Sebastian, Samar,1; Bato,7; Abuyog,1; Baybay City,1; Palo,1; Tanauan,1; and Mercedes,1, the first town in Eastern Samar to have the disease.
“Local transmission is confirmed in Tacloban City, municipalities of La Paz and Hilongos. This is because the recent confirmed cases have no recent travel history except for LSIs or no exposure to a confirmed case of COVID-19,” Dr. Minerva Molon, DOH regional director said.
“At this stage of localized transmission, we should intensify contact tracing, mandatory admission of those who arrived in the region in the community isolation unit, improved hospital preparedness and enhance severe acute respiratory illness surveillance. We will also make sure that our laboratory is capable of testing possible surge of specimens coming from different provinces in the region,” Molon added.
Roca also said that based on the new cases, the province of Eastern Samar has posted its first COVID-19 case involving a 30-year old man overseas worker from the town of Mercedes.
Governor Ben Evardone said that he has directed Mercedes Mayor Edwin Quiminales to place Barangay Palamrag, where the overseas worker resides, under lockdown as part of their contact tracing and to ensure that virus could be contained right away.
“I would like to assure everybody that we will do our best to protect the health and safety of our people,” the governor said.
Until it recorded its first case on Saturday, Eastern Samar was the lone province in Eastern Visayas which does not have COVID-19 a case.
Among the provinces in the region, Leyte has posted the highest with 138 cases followed by Samar with 45; Northern Samar, 7; Southern Leyte, 7; and Biliran, 2.
TACLOBAN CITY – The mayor of the remote town of Matuguinao, Samar has called on critics to look into the plight of villagers in provinces affected by armed struggle before maligning the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.
Mayor Aran Boller said in a phone interview on Tuesday that families in far-flung communities, who have been suffering from terroristic activities of the New People’s Army (NPA), stand to benefit from the passage of House Bill 6875.
“People who are against the bill do not know the real situation on the ground. Protesters have never experienced what the people here have gone through because of illegal activities of NPA rebels in our town,” Boller told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
The mayor recalled that several residents have been victims of extortion, recruitment of minors, indoctrination, deprived of basic education, and distracted economic activities due to the presence of rebels.
In the past, the NPA launched several attacks against government forces, displacing hundreds of families.
He appealed to critics to stop spreading false information that the bill seeks to silence critics since there are existing laws that protect those expressing dissent against the government and conducting peaceful demonstrations.
On June 8, he issued a statement to the National Task Force on Ending Local Communist Armed Conflict in response to protests against the passage of the bill.
“I was compelled to issue the statement after I heard that some member of the House of Representatives withdrew their support to the passage of the bill due to pressures from those against the bill. Why we should be scared? We are the legitimate government,” the mayor added.
For several decades, Matuguinao has been known as a hotbed of NPA fighters due to its poor road access. It was only in 2018 when the town got connected to Samar’s main highway after the completion of 21-kilometer Gandara-Matuguinao Road funded by the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process’ Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana).
Of the 20 villages, five far-flung areas are still threatened by sightings of about 20 NPA fighters crossing the boundaries of Samar and Northern Samar provinces.
Ending insurgency has been the priority of the local government as they believe that armed struggle hampered the town’s economic development for decades.
Since the launch of its strong campaign against insurgents, 33 active NPA fighters and 96 die-hard supporters from Matuguinao town have surrendered to the local government and the Philippine Army, Boller said.
The mayor said the passage of the enactment of the landmark legislation that seeks to prevent, prohibit and penalize terrorism, is a big boost to their campaign against insurgency.
The bill introduces provisions imposing life imprisonment without parole on those who will participate in the planning, training, preparation, and facilitation of a terrorist act; possess objects connected with the preparation for the commission of terrorism; or collect or make documents connected with the preparation of terrorism.
Under the bill, any person who will threaten to commit terrorism will suffer the penalty of 12 years. The same jail term will be meted against those who will propose any terroristic acts or incite others to commit terrorism.
Any person who will voluntarily and knowingly join any organization, association, or group of persons knowing that such is a terrorist organization, will suffer imprisonment of 12 years.
Under the bill, the number of days a suspected person can be detained without a warrant of arrest is 14 calendar days, extendable by 10 days.
(SARWELL Q. MENIANO/PNA)
