Duterte wants cops deployed in quarantine hotels to prevent skipping

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte proposed on Tuesday the deployment of police officers at quarantine hotels to prevent anyone from skipping quarantine, as a Filipino woman who arrived from the US did last December.

During his weekly address to the people, Duterte admitted that it would be difficult to guard individuals under quarantine.

“Much as we would like really to control, even going after these defiant people, we can’t really guard them,” he said, speaking in a mix of Filipino and English.

“It would not be legally correct to go after the hotel owners or the managers there, whoever is attending to the needs of the people that are inside the hotel because of quarantine reasons,” Duterte said. “It has to be a government personnel or employee.”

He then asked Interior Secretary Eduardo Año if it would be possible to put two officers in two shifts in each quarantine hotel.

“Yes, sir,” Año said. “The chief Philippine National Police and I have talked about this and they’re prepared to do it.”

Meanwhile, earlier on Tuesday, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Grou of the PNP filed a complaint at the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office against the woman who skipped quarantine last December — Gwyneth Anne Chua — along with her parents, and five employees and officials of the hotel where she was supposed to have been under quarantine.

Chua breached COVID-19 quarantine protocols by leaving the Berjaya Makati Hotel to attend a party in Barangay Poblacion, Makati.

The hotel had earlier apologized for “failing to stop” Chua from skipping quarantine.

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ATM