Navotas City is not yet ready for modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) because a number of residents continue to violate quarantine rules, Mayor Toby Tiangco said Friday.
Six months after the lockdown was imposed in Metro Manila to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Tiangco said, city and police personnel continue to apprehend "a lot" of quarantine violators, mostly not wearing face masks or minors outside their homes.
"Actually, up to today, ang dami naming nahuhuling hindi nagsusuot ng face masks nang tama. Saka yung mga bata, di ba, below 18, sabi ng NTF (National Task Force) dapat nasa loob ng bahay. Ang dami talagang pabayang magulang eh. So hindi pa ready (Until now, we continue to apprehend a lot of residents not wearing face masks properly as well as minors outside their houses. There are a lot of negligent parents. So we're not yet ready)," Tiangco told DZRH in an interview when asked if the city is ready to shift to a less strict quarantine status.
Tiangco cited as example a number of children playing and wandering along R-10 despite quarantine.
"Lagi naming hinahabol yung mga 'yun... Isa po 'yan sa sakit ng ulo namin kaya nga, sabi ko nga doon sa mga magulang, ano ba naman kayo, pipigilan nyo lang ang mga bata, hindi nyo pa mapigilan (We always chase them. That’s one of our problems that is why I tell the parents that the only thing they can do is stop their children from violating quarantine protocols and yet they cannot do it)," he said.
This kind of behavior, Tiangco said has already compromised city projects due to budget realignment for COVID-19 response.
"Ang ginagastos naman namin ay pera ng taumbayan diba. Sabi ko sa kanila, isipin nyo ang COVID, bibili ng PPE, kung ano ano... so yung mga pondong to, instead na nagagamit sa pag develop o pandagdag ng classroom o kung ano pa man ay nagagmit sa ibang bagay na pwede namang iwasan...kung makikiisa lang ang mamamayan (It's the people's money that we're spending. I tell them that instead of using our funds to build more classrooms, the funds are being used to buy PPEs. We can avoid this if everybody cooperates)," he said.
Although several health experts have already noticed that Navotas started flattening its COVID-19 curve, Tiangco said the local government cannot be overly confident as the cases might spike again.
Tiangco said he prefers GCQ to remain in the city.
"Pero syempre we have to monitor the data on a weekly basis. Kasi kapag nag-spike yan ng kaunti...dapat ihinto kaagad yan (Because if there is a spike in the number of cases again, we must stop it)," he said.