By Aaron B. Recuenco
Drones have been deployed in Cebu City to assist in the monitoring of the compliance of local residents in the implementation of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ).
Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, commander of the Joint Task Force COVID Shield, said the 11 drones will be manned by personnel of the Cebu City Police Office to monitor the areas where violations of the quarantine rules would be observed.
Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar
(PNP / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
It was Brig. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, the regional director of the Central Visayas regional police and the concurrent commander of the Regional JTF COVID Shield, who approved the deployment of the drones.
“Once violations were observed, those who man the drones would feed the information to the ground troopers for immediate deployment,” said Eleazar.
The importance of aerial monitoring through drones was seen during the aerial inspection made by the top JTF COVID Shield officials where weak points of the quarantine control points and potential areas of violations were identified.
The weak points of quarantine control, according to Eleazar, have already been covered by commandos of the police’s elite Special Action Force (SAF) and soldiers whose ground deployment already started on Sunday.
Among those identified were usual places of convergence and the possible entry points of those who would avoid the checkpoints that would be set up by the soldiers and the police.
“Our personnel from the Police Regional Office 7 are working well with the SAF commandos and soldiers in securing Cebu City. We are optimistic that our efforts to contain the unnecessary movement of people as a first line of defense against the COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease) would be successful,” said Eleazar.
The official said a command and control vehicle from SAF was already set up in a strategic area in Cebu City where police and military supervisors of the ECQ would meet to discuss security adjustments on the ground.