COVID-19 task force abolishes barangay checkpoints on national, local roads

MANILA, Philippines — The Joint Task Force Corona Virus Shield (JTCV Shield), the newly-created enforcement unit of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), has ordered the removal of barangay checkpoints along major thoroughfares.

According to JTCV Shield, barangay checkpoints were only impeding the entry of workers offering essential services during the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.

“We in the JTF CV Shield have been receiving similar complaints from cargo owners and drivers and even from people who are supposed to be exempted from home quarantine but are being barred in barangay checkpoints,” JTCV Shield chief Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said in a statement on Tuesday.

Eleazar said barangay checkpoints are creating their own guidelines for the ongoing quarantine, which causes confusion among frontliners.

“Some of these barangay checkpoints are implementing their own rules, which are clearly in defiance of the IATF guidelines,” Eleazar, who is also Philippine National Police (PNP) deputy for operations, pointed out.

Eleazar further lamented that barangay checkpoints along national roads and provincial roads caused the delay in the movement of cargo and basic goods.

The police official earlier advised truck drivers tasked to deliver essential goods to and from Luzon to report their complaints to the PNP Command Center at 09988490013 and 09175382495.

KGA