Mayor insists on testing, quarantine for ROFs

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

 

Amid the national government’s standing edict on the repatriation of Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROF), Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas on Friday put his foot down and requested the national government’s consideration anew in allowing them to enter Iloilo City, albeit with a few conditions.

Treñas sent a letter on Sept 17, 2020 addressed to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles asking for a moratorium on ROF repatriations.

Duque and Nograles are Co-Chairpersons of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID).

The mayor again sent a letter dated Sept 18 for Duque, Nograles, and National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana.

Lorenzana is the Chairperson of the National Task Force (NTF) Against the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The letter was also addressed to Overseas Workers Welfare Administration chief Hans Leo Cacdac and Office of Civil Defense-Region 6 (OCD-6) Director Jose Roberto Nuñez.

Nuñez is the Chairperson of the Regional Task Force (RTF) Against COVID-19.

These letters were in light of the NTF’s Aug. 19, 2020 order, signed by Lorenzana, which set the operational guidelines on ROF repatriations.

Section 7.5.2 of the order provides that ROFs will be taken directly to their homes by their local COVID-19 task forces.

Section 7.5.3 of the same order also provides that the ROFs shall no longer be subject to local health protocols set by their respective Local Government Units (LGU).

Western Visayas’ top leaders already met on Sept 16, and agreed that they must continue their protocols on testing via Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and mandatory isolation upon the ROFs’ arrival.

In the letter, the mayor said that the Iloilo City Government will allow the repatriation of its ROF residents into the city, but they must be subjected to the said protocols.

“The Iloilo City Government has always aligned its intervention measures with the national directives. However, on this matter, [I] insist upon the prerogative to stick with the local health protocols in place—that mandatory RT-PCR testing and isolation of the ROFs be done by the receiving LGU,” Treñas said in his letter.

The mayor emphasized the “practicability” of testing and isolation of the ROFs, saying that it cannot be discounted.

“[W]e cannot help but visualize the practicability of dispensing with the testing and isolation of ROFs by receiving LGUs. Despite having tested negative for COVID-19 from their ports of origin, we cannot discount the fact that ROFs are not immune from exposure to possible contraction of COVID-19 while they are in transit to their respective LGUs of destination,” he said.

He also averred that the testing and isolation of ROFs “would effectively break the chain of transmission and help ROFs save on costs and resources.”

The mayor asserted in his letter that the local government has the power to retain their local health policies based on the General Welfare Clause, or Section 16 of Republic Act No. 7160 (Local Government Code of 1991).

The provision states that LGUs shall “ensure and support, among other things, […] promote health and safety[.]”

RTF spokesperson Aletha Nogra said in a text message to Daily Guardian that their Emergency Operations Center has not received their copy of the letter.

Nogra did not provide any other reactions to the letter as of this writing.

Daily Guardian has also reached out to OWWA-6 Regional Director Rizza Joy Moldes for their reaction on the mayor’s Sept. 18 letter as of this writing.

Moldes, however, told Aksyon Radyo Iloilo that without any orders or documents from the NTF, in relation to the mayor’s Sept. 17 letter, ROF repatriation operations will continue.