By Antonio Colina IV
DAVAO CITY – The city government of Davao will provide cash assistance to 205 passengers supposedly bound here, who have been stranded in Clark, Pampanga, and Cebu City for nearly a month since air travels going to Davao was ordered restricted last March 19 to control the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
In her live interview over the Davao City Disaster Radio 87.5 on Monday, Duterte said at least 160 of those who were stranded were in Clark, while the 45 others remained in Cebu.
She did not mention the amount of cash aid given to the passengers.
“At this point, that’s the only thing we can do for them because as of March 29, the DOH (Department of Health) doctors said we cannot open air travel,” she said.
She said these passengers could not go to Davao until after the lockdown is lifted, which has been restricting land, sea, and air travels.
From simple community quarantine, Duterte implemented a 15-day enhanced community quarantine from April 4 until April 20. She said the local health authorities were assessing whether or not to reinstate the community quarantine since the number of COVID-19 cases in the region appears to be going down.
At least 21 domestic flights and six international flights going to and from Davao International Airport have been suspended last month.
The Davao International Airport has six international such as the Cathay Dragon’s Davao-Hong Kong-Davao, Cebu Pacific’s Davao-Singapore-Davao, Garuda Indonesia’s Davao-Manado-Davao, Qatar Airways’ Davao-Qatar-Davao, SilkAir’s Davao-Singapore-Davao, and XiamenAir’s Davao-Quanzhou-Davao, and 21 domestic flights, services by various airlines.