MANILA, Philippines — The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) is negotiating with hospitals to accommodate for mass testing its police officers considered as persons under investigation (PUIs) and persons under monitoring (PUMs) for coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
In a virtual presser on Tuesday, Metro Manila police chief Major Gen. Debold Sinas said the NCRPO is coordinating with Marikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro to test police officers in the newly-established molecular laboratory site in Marikina City next week.
“Meron na kaming negotiation diyan, by next week ata may discussion with mayor ng Marikina, sila yung naaprub na yung testing nila,” Sinas said when asked about plans for mass testing of police officers.
(We already have an ongoing negotiation. By next week, we will have a discussion with Mayor of Marikina. Their testing site has already been approved.)
“Unahin namin next week kung matuloy sa Marikina, yung mga PUIs, PUMs namin (If plans push through in Marikina, we will first have our PUIs, PUMs tested next week),” he added.
Sinas added that police personnel with medical background can help in taking the specimens of patients who underwent swab testing, which will then be sent to the Marikina laboratory or the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Muntinlupa City.
“Kasi ang NCRPO, nagtrain na po kami ng tao namin, yung mga medtech at nurses namin na pwedeng pwede magswab para kami na lang magswab,” he said.
(Because in NCRPO, we trained our police personnel, our Medtech and nurses, to undertake swab tests so that we can conduct the swabs.)
“We also made arrangement sa mga hospitals lalo na sa RITM at ang Marikina kasi medyo supportive yung Marikina LGU na kung merong mga testing ay isama ang mga pulis,” the NCRPO chief added.
(We made an arrangement with hospitals, especially RITM and Marikina because the Marikina local government unit is very supportive that if they have a testing site, we can include the police officers.)
Police personnel can also help conduct swab tests of civilians in the Marikina testing center, Sinas also said.
The Marikina government earlier announced that they will establish their testing site at a new location after the Department of Health (DOH) rejected its proposal to put up the COVID-19 testing center on the sixth floor of Marikina City Health Office.
As of April 6, the NCRPO has 10 PUIs and 200 PUMs while eight police officers tested positive for the infectious disease.