Iloilo mayor mulls charges against unauthorized entrants from NegOcc

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

 

Concepcion, Iloilo mayor Raul Banias on Wednesday said he is considering pressing charges against seven persons from Negros Occidental who entered the town on Tuesday, July 28, 2020, without prior coordination with the provincial government nor the town’s local government unit (LGU).

In Banias’ Facebook post, he stated that these seven Negrense residents entered Iloilo via Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) vessel at the Dumangas Town Port at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

The Concepcion Municipal Health Office was informed immediately by port authorities, who were then advised that the persons would not be allowed to enter the town.

Despite the negative advice, they still proceeded to Concepcion in an SUV.

The mayor said he had learned about their arrival on Tuesday afternoon, after several residents in the barangay they stayed in were complaining.

In a phone interview, Banias told Daily Guardian that these persons were not Locally Stranded Individuals, (LSI) but non-residents who have relatives in the town and have a house currently under construction.

 

“They were not LSIs, but they were residents of Negros [Occidental] who have relatives in Concepcion. According to them, they went to Concepcion because they were having a house built in Barangay Loong, and they were visiting it,” Banias said.

 

Since their extraction, they have been transferred to the town’s isolation facility and subject to testing via Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR).

The local police are now investigating if there is probable cause to press charges against these persons according to the mayor.

Banias said that since Republic Act No. 11469 (Bayanihan To Heal As One Act) had already expired, he is looking to charge them based on Article 151 of the Revised Penal Code (Resistance and Disobedience to a Person in Authority or the Agents of Such Person).

Under the said Article, violators may face imprisonment from one day to six months and a fine of P500.00.

 

“The police is now investigating if there were laws violated because despite the advice of our municipal health office that they cannot enter the town because they did not coordinate and we had no place to put them in, they still insisted. Because the [Rep. Act No. 11469] had expired, I think they violated Article 151 of the Revised Penal Code. We will study this, because if needed, we will file a case against them,” the mayor said.

 

Trips to Bacolod City and Negros Occidental from Iloilo have been suspended since Monday, July 27, 2020 due to the rising cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the city and the province.