Facade of the Bureau of Quarantine building. Photo from the BOQ website
MANILA, Philippines — Bureau of Quarantine Director Ferdinand Salcedo assured President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday that nobody in his staff had been involved in any irregularities related to breaches in pandemic protocols.
Duterte raised the issue during his taped weekly “Talk to the People” that aired late Tuesday night.
“There are reports that many [travelers] in slip past [health protocols] in airports. Some pay up so they could skip [the protocols]. So it’s [allegedly] the Bureau of Quarantine leading that game,” Duterte told Salcedo, speaking in a mix of Filipino and English.
“Regarding that issue, sir, the Bureau of Quarantine has investigated the staff of your quarantine, and we have not seen such case, sir, among the staff of Bureau of Quarantine,” Salcedo said. “We have not seen any case like this that the BOQ staff are involved in this kind of irregularities.”
For his part, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said he had instructed the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to probe the matter.
READ: Go to DOJ, NBI: Look at possible syndicate behind quarantine breach
“Mr. President, I have already discussed the matter with the NBI chief this morning and the [Department of Justice] has instructed the NBI to conduct a thorough investigation of these incidents, maybe starting all the way from the arrival area in our international airports, all the way to the quarantine hotels, and even to the home quarantine,” Guevarra said.
The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police has filed a complaint before the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office against a certain Gwyneth Anne Chua, who was found to have skipped quarantine when she arrived from the US last December to party at a restaurant and a bar in Barangay Poblacion in Makati.
Included in the complaint are Chua’s parents and five employees and officials of the Berjaya Makati Hotel where she was supposed to be under quarantine.
The involved hotel has earlier apologized for “failing to stop” Chua from skipping quarantine.
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