Cebu to follow IATF rules on returning Pinoys
CEBU Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia has set aside her province’s quarantine protocols in deference to President Rodrigo Duterte.
In her Executive Order 23 issued on Monday, Garcia threatened criminal and administrative charges against government officials and agencies that will not follow the province’s protocol for overseas Filipino workers and returning overseas Filipinos.
The following day, the governor announced she was setting aside her order “in deference to the President.”
“This executive order I am now setting aside in deference to the President (Rodrigo Duterte) even as we look forward to the scheduled meeting on the 28th of June with Health Secretary Francisco Duque and the same technical experts who had advised the President last night as regards the need to strictly implement the IATF guidelines,” Garcia, in an address streamed live on the Facebook page of Sugbo News, the Capitol’s news arm, said.
Duterte on late Monday said he understood the governor but he cannot make an exception for Cebu and that policies he has approved remain to be obeyed.
Cebu tests inbound travelers upon their arrival. Travelers are then required to stay for two or three days at a hotel isolation facility, take a Covid-19 test on the seventh day after the arrival, and complete the rest of a 14-day quarantine at home.
However, the national government requires travelers from abroad to stay for 10 days at a quarantine facility and another four days in home quarantine, as they undergo Covid-19 screening on the seventh day.
Garcia thanked Duterte for ensuring that the national government would shoulder the cost of hotel quarantine of travelers arriving in Cebu.
The government said the hotel stay of the returning overseas Filipinos will be sourced from the remaining funds from Bayanihan 2.
The funds will be coursed through either the Department of the Interior and Local Government or the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
