By Warren Elijah E. Valdez DAVAO CITY - Mayor Sara Duterte has advised all barangay captains to stop the issuances of quarantine passes in their respective areas to avoid confusion among constituents pending the official order from the city government.
Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio (MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
In an interview with Davao City Disaster Radio on Wednesday, Duterte said the issuance of the passes was not necessary because the city was not under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). “There is no implementation yet of quarantine passes. We ask our barangay captains to cease and desist from implementing quarantine passes,” Duterte said. “I have seen that initially, it is okay (to have quarantine pass) if you are just within the barangay. If you are just inside the barangay roaming around, it is ideal,” she said. However, Duterte said when a person goes out of the barangay, the quarantine pass becomes useless because the guidelines in each barangay were different. “Different (barangay) captains have different guidelines in their respective passes,” she said, pointing out the various passes being distributed by some barangays here have work pass, food pass, and quarantine pass. Duterte said the barangay captains must wait for the instruction of the city government in giving out passes as the city was still not under enhanced community quarantine. “This means that all of the (government) offices are closed and they are already working from home except for the PNP (Philippine National Police), AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), and the doctors,” she added. There must also be a cancellation of mass transportation and “suspension of all works in the private sectors except for food and health.” “Once we no longer have the public transportation, that is (already) ECQ. Because once there is no public transport there can never be anyway that a person can travel. That is the correct time to question why are there people roaming around the streets, because we are on ECQ,” she said.