With 3 COVID cases, Pampanga placed under state of calamity
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO –– Following three confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Pampanga has been placed under a state of calamity, enabling the provincial government to spend its calamity fund on measures that would protect its residents from the disease.
Heeding the request of the Pampanga Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the Provincial Board passed Resolution No. 6102 on March 16 to “address, contain and prevent the spread of the COVID-19 and its ill-effects and impact on the people of the province.”
The resolution authorizes Governor Dennis Pineda to access the quick response fund for “aid, medicine, relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and other work or services to calamity-affected communities such as the purchase of COVID-19 testing kits.”
It also proposed a moratorium of payments of real property taxes, and a temporary halt to the disconnection of electricity, water, and the internet.
On Tuesday (March 17), Pineda met with farmers’ cooperatives and associations, which agreed to sell their crops within Pampanga.
Mayors have intensified price monitoring and control in municipal public markets.
Article continues after this advertisementLast Monday (March 16), Archbishop Florentino Lavarias canceled Masses, including those meant for funerals, baptism, and weddings in around 100 parishes in the province. Priests were instructed to celebrate Masses without congregations and choir, which must be broadcast online.
Article continues after this advertisementAlso on Monday, Porac town declared a state of calamity. The second confirmed COVID-19 case is a resident of the town’s Barangay Poblacion. The municipal legislative board also approved a curfew and community quarantine.
On Tuesday, hundreds of commuters were stranded along sections of the Jose Abad Santos Avenue in the capital city of San Fernando in Pampanga. Public jeepneys did not ply their routes, province-wide, the police reported.
Some tricycles defied the transport ban to earn quick cash. Homeowners associations in residential subdivisions, like Pilar Village in San Fernando, denied entry to visitors of residents./lzb
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