BACOLOD CITY –– The Negros Occidental provincial government has ordered the arrest of seven persons who allegedly refused to be swabbed for COVID-19 upon entry in the province.
The seven, who considered themselves as Authorized Persons Outside Residence (APORs) entered through the Bacolod-Silay Airport on Tuesday with a letter from a Bacolod councilor allowing them entry, said Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz.
“We will have them located and arrested,” he said.
Negros Occidental has a health protocol that all those who enter the province must undergo COVID-19 tests.
Diaz identified the seven APORs as Charle Magne Andres, Dexter Claveria Aquino, Marlo Federiso, and Johnny Yanes of DC Aquino Land Surveying Services, and Jestoni Absin Mangulabnan, Froillan Cris Timplanza Tungol, and Jim Batiduan Valerio of Pax Cable Inc.
Meanwhile, five Bacolodnons who tested positive for COVID-19 during the August 28 to 29 mass testing in Bacolod City have not been located until now.
Bacolod Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran said these persons provided fictitious names and one of them even used the name of a dead person.
Familiaran, chair of the city’s Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19, said the police, who are helping in contact tracing and in extracting patients from their residences to isolation facilities, checked their names with the Commission on Elections and the Land Transportation Office, but were told that the names did not exist.
“The quarantine period of these five individuals may have already lapsed, but what if they have infected other people like their families?” he said.
Of the 4,384 Bacolodnons who had participated in the mass testing, 531 tested positive for the virus.