「日刊まにら新聞」ウェブ

By Robina Asido

Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano said pilot testing of granular lockdown in the National Capital Region (NCR) will start on Wednesday, September 8.

In a radio interview, Ano said the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) will make a recommendation to adopt the policy shift nationwide.

"In the whole country, we still implement the usual community quarantine classification, we have what we call the shift policy which is still for the approval of the president, but we will start the pilot testing in NCR on Sept. 8," he said.

The National Capital Region is under modified enhanced community quarantine until Sept. 7.

"In our implementation of pilot testing, we will see the effectiveness of this (granular lockdown) and from there we will make necessary recommendations to the president for his approval in case we want to adopt this nationwide," he added.

Ano said the national government will still have the authority to declare enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to a particular local government unit but he also noted that under the policy shift the LGU can declare what they called as an "Alert Level 4" which is stricter than ECQ.

"The LGU will now decide on what areas will be placed on granular lockdown and the national government will still have its authority to declare an ECQ to a particular LGU," he said.

"The LGU if they are not under ECQ... will be given a discretion to implement granular lockdown and it will depend on the alert level. Alert Level 4 which is the highest or what we also called as high risk will have a much tighter granular lockdown compared to ECQ, because only the healthcare workers will be allowed to go out of their houses even other APORs (authorized persons outside residence) will have to stay indoor," he added.

Ano said the government is also trying to talk to hospitals and NGOs if they can provide accommodations for health care workers in areas under Alert Level 4 lockdown.

"We are asking the hospitals were they (health care workers) would to provide accommodation and the LGUs will also help to provide them provide accommodation outside of the lockdown area so that we will assure no virus will get into and outside the lockdown area," he said.

Ano said granular lockdown can be implemented in a "group of households, a street, a block, a village, a barangay or more than one barangay.''

''That is the difference and then there will be guidance on who will be allowed to go out if the area is under alert level 1, 2, and 3 depending on the activity,'' said Ano.

He also assured that the LGUs and the national government will provide food packs to help residents affected by the granular lockdown.

Ano said before it will be implemented, NCR mayors will conduct another meeting "probably on Sept 7" to finetune its implementation.

"The NCR mayors had a meeting last night and they invited me. They were able to resolve many issues. Our NCR LGU's are now ready and maybe twice a week there will be meeting to access the implementation because it is new.

Ano said this approach must be adopted '' because we cannot sacrifice the economic activities so we should just lock down the high risk areas... so that we can also focus all the intervention and resources in the particular area under Alert Level Four." DMS