Southern Luzon LGUs find ‘creative’ ways to go around enhanced community quarantine

LOS BAÑOS, Philippines –Nearly a week after the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine was declared on March 16, city and municipal governments in the Southern Luzon region have found “creative” ways to go about the quarantine.

In Pagsanjan, Mayor Peter Casius Trinidad laid out on social media Sunday a system for the distribution of family food packs that would minimize physical contact.

The guidelines said that those who will distribute the food packs will do scheduled rounds at night so that locals need not crowd in a specific area. Locals are instructed to leave a chair outside their homes and wait inside.

Distribution teams will then put one family food pack per household on the chairs. Residents could only go out and get their food packs once the distribution teams had left.

In Los Baños, public markets were provided this week with clear plastic sheets to serve as barriers between vendors and buyers. Buyers can only put their hands past the plastic barrier to transact.

Around 5,000 Biñan City tricycle drivers were given 5 kilos of rice each by the municipal government on Saturday.

So that social distancing can be observed, the tricycle drivers were required to line-up with their tricycles around the city hall. After receiving their share of rice, their tricycle operators and drivers’ association identification cards were marked with a ticket puncher.

Magdalena and Victoria towns enforced liquor bans according to separate announcements made on social media Sunday.

Holding area for quarantine violators

In General Luna, Quezon, a Gabaldon-type school building will be used as a temporary holding area for violators of the enhanced community quarantine, particularly curfew violators and those not practicing social distancing.

Gabaldon buildings are school buildings designed by American Architect William Parsons and funded through Act No. 1801 authored by Isauro Gabaldon, a former Nueva Ecija governor.

“If all violators will be held at the local police jail, I’m afraid that the social distancing measures will not be properly observed,” Mayor Matt Erwin Florido said in an online interview Sunday.

With the holding area now in place, Florido said he already gave order to the police to arrest violators. He also instructed the local police to arrange the seats at the old elementary school building to follow the social distancing protocol.

Those who violate the “enhanced community quarantine” declared by President Duterte over Luzon may be arrested and charged for violating Article 151 of the Revised Penal Code, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra earlier said.

Article 151 “punishes resistance and disobedience to a person in authority or the agents of such person”, Guevarra explained.

The penalty for violating Article 151 of the RPC is arresto mayor, or imprisonment of one month and one day to six months, and a fine not exceeding P100,000.

Florido said the violators will be held for only two to three hours at the Gabaldon school building while the case against them were being prepared by the authorities.

Last year, President Duterte signed Republic Act 11194 or the Gabaldon School Buildings Conservation Act mandating the conservation of the old school buildings nationwide.

/MUF