By Noreen Jazul Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu said he has recommended to President Duterte for Cebu City to remain under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu joins the meeting with members of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) presided by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte at the Malago Clubhouse in Malacañang on June 22, 2020. (ROBINSON NIÑAL JR./PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN) “We have to maintain the quarantine level here,” Cimatu, head of Region 7 COVID-19 Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID), told ANC on Tuesday. “Kung sa first aid ito, stop the bleeding because it is bleeding now (If this is first aid, what we have to do is stop the bleeding first, because it is bleeding now),” Cimatu added. Cimatu said he also requested for additional rooms in hospitals, additional quarantine stations for Cebu City, and is eyeing to convert large spaces in the city into isolation facilities like what the government did in Metro Manila. The DENR chief said part of his recommendation is to send additional health workers in the city. “If we can have 30 percent more of what we have here,” Cimatu said. Cimatu also defended the deployment of more military personnel in the city, saying it helped in terms of manning checkpoints and preventing residents from going out of their homes. “The intention naman talaga (really) is not to actually show force. It’s a way of preventing them from going outside,” Cimatu said.