Tarlac City requiring negative COVID test result from outsiders

Tarlac City police officers man a checkpoint at the city border. (Photo from the Tarlac City government)

MABALACAT CITY, Pampanga – Tarlac City will require a recent negative COVID-19 swab or antigen test result from residents of other provinces regardless of their vaccination status before they re granted entry into the city from August 6 to 20.

In a social media post on Wednesday, the Tarlac City Information Office said the “new requirements” at border checkpoints include negative RT-PCR or antigen test results and any valid government-issued ID or other pertinent documents.

Vaccination cards will only be an “optional” requirement.

The Tarlac City government said residents of other provinces who work in the city may present their vaccination cards instead of current negative swab test results.

Many residents of nearby provinces work in the Luisita Industrial Park, a Philippine Economic Zone Authority-registered economic zone in Tarlac City. 

The city government said a Philippine National Police (PNP) travel authority is also required for “outsiders” who want to enter Tarlac for essential purposes.

It said the source of the new requirements was provincial police director Col. Renante Cabico and even posted a photo of his internal memorandum to city and municipal police chiefs on the activation of quarantine checkpoints along the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway.

But in a phone interview Thursday morning, Cabico told the Inquirer that the PNP travel authority was already removed from the list of requirements.

He said his office is just implementing the verbal instructions of the Tarlac provincial inter-agency task force.

“We do not make the border control policy. What we do is just implement the directives of the provincial IATF. I have asked for a written copy of the IATF’s (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases) orders but so far only verbal instructions have been given to us,” he said.

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