2 solons want peacekeeping mobilization of military amid COVID-19 crisis

Filipino troopers wear protective masks as they arrive to augment police at Valenzuela, metropolitan Manila, Philippines early Sunday March 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

MANILA, Philippines — Two lawmakers are in favor of mobilizing the military for “peacekeeping” purposes as the country continues to face the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Iloilo 5th District Rep, Raul Tupas, who chairs the House committee on national defense and security, said that the move would ensure discipline and order during the quarantine period.

“If the people do not follow and respect the tanods (village watchmen), they will heed the soldiers and reservists,” Tupas said in a statement.

“To stop the coronavirus and keep it from coming back, we must have more forceful measures to make citizens stay home. Clearly, the barangay tanods and LGU (local government unit) personnel need help, not only from the police but also from other uniformed services,” the lawmaker added.

If military personnel would be deployed to locales, there is “no need for them to drive their tanks into the cities and towns,” Tupas said.

“We must send our soldiers out of their camps in perhaps the largest peacekeeping operation during peacetime in our country’s history,” the lawmaker said.

“While we deploy our soldiers to the population centers, special care must be taken that the surrounding areas and remote communities are not wide open to attacks by insurgents, bandits, and other lawless armed groups,” he added.

Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker Mikee Romero said that it is “full-scale red alert peacekeeping mobilization of the military and police” that is needed to fight COVID-19 and not martial law.

Romero’s proposed peacekeeping mobilization will be until April 30 covering Metro Manila, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon).

“Their mission would be to make citizens stay at home and to secure all hospitals, temporary quarantine facilities, supermarkets, and public markets,” Romero said.

“During the peacekeeping mission, mobilize and deploy the armed services to as many streets and intersections as possible, all the military and police, including all their civilian personnel and uniformed personnel assigned to offices, as well as the cadets in the academies and those in training at the military camps,” the lawmaker added.

Likewise, Romero is proposing a curfew from  12:00 noon to 6:00 a.m. This, however, does not cover health workers, police, military, LGU personnel, supermarket staff, and cargo forwarders.

“Shut down all the public markets and supermarkets to walk-ins. No more long lines. Wait at home for your groceries to be delivered. Enough of this nonsense of thousands of people roaming the streets and thousands of motorists on the road,” Romero said.

“Cancel all quarantine passes. If motorists refuse to go back home, impound their private vehicles and confiscate their driver’s licenses. Keep all the impounded private vehicles at the parking lots of shopping malls. Let their owners claim their vehicles when the quarantine is over,” he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier placed all of Luzon under an enhanced community quarantine in March as the number of people infected with the new coronavirus swells.

The lockdown was supposed to end mid-April but Duterte extended it until April 30.

/MUF