LGUs told: Stop setting window hours in markets, groceries, pharmacies

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has ordered local government units (LGUs) to stop setting window hours for people to buy food and medicine amid the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.

In a memorandum, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, spokesman of the Inter-Agency Task Force handling the government’s response on the COVID-19 crisis, said LGUs should rather imposed “scheduling and/or clustering of the communities and/or barangays.”

“The DILG says, and I quote, ‘the imposition of such restrictions further creates congestion of people who flock to these establishments at the same time, and poses risks to the implementation of social distancing,’” Nograles said in an online press briefing Monday.

“Scheduling and/or clustering of the communities and/or barangays who may be allowed to go out instead is highly encouraged.”

The entire Luzon, home to about half the country’s total population, has been placed under a month-long enhanced community quarantine to curtail the further spread of the infectious respiratory illness. It was supposed to lapse on April 13 but President Duterte approved the IATF proposal to extend it until April 30.

The measure stopped all public transportation, banned mass gatherings, and strictly enforced home quarantine as work for the majority of the region’s residents was suspended. People are only allowed to go out for provision of food and other basic necessities and in cases of emergency.

To date, the Philippines has 6,259 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 409 deaths and 572 recoveries.