PNP chief: Follow quarantine rules or else more people will die of COVID-19

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Archie Gamboa on Wednesday warned of more deaths due to the new coronavirus disease if people will continue to violate the enhanced community quarantine rules.

Gamboa stressed that the guidelines set by the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) were created after a thorough evaluation with health professionals.

“Sana maintindihan ng tao, hindi ito ginagawa ng IATF ng walang dahilan. Maraming nagdi-discuss na experts mga medical. Pinag-aaralan ‘yung models, success and figures for us to understand kung anong mga dapat policies ang ginagawa namin at ito na ginawa na sana naman sundin ng mga tao,” Gamboa said over dzMM.

(I hope people will understand that the IATF did not create these guidelines without reason. Medical experts are discussing many solutions. Studying models, success, and figures to understand what policies should be done. Now that it has been created, the public should follow it.)

“Kung hindi ito sundin, magbibilang tayo ng mga patay. Lalong magtatagal (ang lockdown),” he added.

(If the public won’t follow this, we will just count fatalities. The lockdown will stay longer.)

Gamboa recently ordered his men to arrest enhanced community quarantine violators without warning.

“It seems hindi nadadala mga tao (It seem people are not learning) that’s why we gave instruction na wala nang makiusap (that no more negotiations).  We will file a case against them and then mag-reserve tayo ng appropriate na (we’ll reserve appropriate) confinement areas para lahat arestuhin na  basta may violation (so that all with violations will be arrested),” he said.

Figures from the PNP showed that as of April 21, a total of 139,381 individuals have breached enhanced community quarantine protocols.

KGA