Issuance of Travel Authority to Eastern Visayas-bound LSIs deferred
By Aaron B. Recuenco
The Joint Task Force COVID Shield has deferred the issuance of Travel Authority to Locally Stranded Individuals (LSIs) bound to Eastern Visayas due to the large number of people that are still under quarantine in various localities in the region.
Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, commander of the JTF COVID Shield, said the decision to defer LSI travels to Eastern Visayas for two weeks is aimed at giving the LGUs enough time to implement their quarantine measures on the LSIs which previously arrived in their respective localities.
Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar
(PNP / MANILA BULLETIN / FILE PHOTO) “According to our SILG (Secretary of the Interior and Local Government) Eduardo Año, the isolation facilities of these Local Government Units (LGUs) are still full and they want to unclog these facilities first before they accept new batches of LSIs,” said Eleazar. “Our Local Chief Executives said that if they continue accepting LSIs, they will no longer have enough quarantine facilities to accommodate the arriving LSIs and since our Local Chief Executives do not want home quarantine, they decided and requested that the best way to address the problem is to suspend the travel of the LSIs to the region for two weeks,” he added. In compliance to Año’s order, Eleazar said all the issuing authorities of the Travel Authority—from chiefs of police and station commanders up to the Director of Operations of the PNP— were advised to refrain from issuing Travel Authorrity for LSIs heading to any part of Eastern Visayas. Police commanders were also advised to fully inform the LSIs applying for Travel Authority the reasons why travels to Eastern Visayas have to be temporarily suspended. Eleazar said they will wait for the advice of the National Task Force Against COVID as to when the LSI travel to Eastern Visayas would be allowed again before they resume issuing Travel Authority for LSIs bound to Eastern Visayas.
Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar(PNP / MANILA BULLETIN / FILE PHOTO) “According to our SILG (Secretary of the Interior and Local Government) Eduardo Año, the isolation facilities of these Local Government Units (LGUs) are still full and they want to unclog these facilities first before they accept new batches of LSIs,” said Eleazar. “Our Local Chief Executives said that if they continue accepting LSIs, they will no longer have enough quarantine facilities to accommodate the arriving LSIs and since our Local Chief Executives do not want home quarantine, they decided and requested that the best way to address the problem is to suspend the travel of the LSIs to the region for two weeks,” he added. In compliance to Año’s order, Eleazar said all the issuing authorities of the Travel Authority—from chiefs of police and station commanders up to the Director of Operations of the PNP— were advised to refrain from issuing Travel Authorrity for LSIs heading to any part of Eastern Visayas. Police commanders were also advised to fully inform the LSIs applying for Travel Authority the reasons why travels to Eastern Visayas have to be temporarily suspended. Eleazar said they will wait for the advice of the National Task Force Against COVID as to when the LSI travel to Eastern Visayas would be allowed again before they resume issuing Travel Authority for LSIs bound to Eastern Visayas.