DAVAO CITY – Mati City and the rest of the Davao Oriental will be placed under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) starting September 8 until September 21.

This was the pact reached by all the city and municipality mayors with the provincial governor, Nelson Dayanghirang, in an emergency meeting in Mati City last week.

Mati City Information Office (CIO) head Ben Tesiorna said the meeting was called due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in the majority of the municipalities and city of Davao Oriental province.

Records show that COVID-19 cases in the province are already at 5,583 with 4,197 recoveries and 159 total deaths. As of September 2, active cases for the province are at 1,227.

Patients admitted to COVID-19 hospitals reached at 132 and those placed at the isolation facilities or are under home quarantine reached at 1,095. People are advised to stay at home.

Mati City Mayor Michelle Nakpil Rabat said the 14–day ECQ has been decided to give their exhausted health frontliners a breather from their duties.

“It was agreed unanimously that we will be on ECQ status from September 8 to 21. This is to give respite to our exhausted health workers and frontliners,” Mayor Michelle said in announcement.

Mati Incident Management Team (IMT) commander Dr. Ben Hur Catbagan Jr. also welcomed the stricter quarantine classification to better prepare all their medical and health working staff.

Catbagan, in a message posted to the Mati IMT group, said they will use this chance to get ahead on vaccination campaigns and public and social measures in the barangays.

“We also pray that it would be enough time for the hospitals (and the isolation facilities) to really expand the bed capacity to meet continuing surges,” Catbagan said.

Catbagan said with about 80-90 percent of the population in the city and the rest of the province without vaccination, people are still vulnerable to variant attack.

Dr. Reden Bersaldo, office-in-charge-concurrent chief of hospital for Davao Oriental Provincial Medical Center, said that the ECQ is somehow “allowing frontliners a break, a break to breath”.

He revealed that the medical frontliners have been pleading to implement ECQ to lower the cases of COVID-19 and control the non-essential movement of the people in the province.

The policies for the ECQ were also discussed during the meeting which includes the following:

• Stricter Border Control from entry and exit points in the Davao Oriental
• 24 Hours Liquor Ban
• Curfew hours from 8PM-5AM
• Wakes limited for 3 days and only immediate family members are allowed to attend
• Strict Monitoring of Establishments as set by the DTI Guidelines

Tesiorna said that the Provincial Government of Davao Oriental will issue an order anytime soon for the implementation of the ECQ in the entire province.