BCPO readies charges vs community quarantine violators

By Glazyl Y. Masculino

BACOLOD City – The Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO) is preparing criminal charges against almost 900 violators of the community quarantine here.

Police Colonel Henry Biñas, BCPO director, said that close to 500 individuals will be facing charges for violating the protocols of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) from March 30 to May 15, while almost 400 persons will also be charged for violating General Community Quarantine (GCQ) rules since May 16.

The BCPO has recorded a total of 286 GCQ violators as of May 20, Police Station 1 has the highest number of violators with 60, followed by Police Station 4 with 57, and the Bacolod City Mobile Force Company with 31.

The arrested persons allegedly did not wear face masks, violated the curfew, and did not observe social distancing, among other violations.

Biñas said that not all arrested violators during ECQ will be charged.

“We conducted evaluation and those who had serious violations like resisting arrest and assault will be facing the charges while the other violators will be given derogatory remarks for disobeying the Executive Order issued by the local government unit,” he added.

Biñas said that evaluation of arrested GCQ violators is also ongoing.

“We will file these charges on regular filing because we cannot have them placed inside the custodial facility if we’ll have it on inquest proceedings because we are preventing the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),” he said.