ALLOWING LOCALLY stranded individuals (LSIs) to travel freely without securing a travel authority would defeat the purpose of quarantine measures aimed at containing the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), a ranking police official said Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, Joint Task Force Covid Shield (JTF Covid Shield) commander, made this remark following calls to scrap the issuance of travel authority as he emphasized that its main purpose is to ensure that LSIs will be easily monitored by the receiving local government units (LGUs) in preventing the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
“If we are to remove travel authority as a requirement for travels outside Metro Manila, outside a province and Highly-Urbanized Cities, then we would practically render the quarantine protocols useless. Otherwise, all the sacrifices that we made for more than 100 days now would be put to waste,” he said in a statement.
Eleazar added that aside from the travel authority, coordination with the receiving LGU is essential to advise local officials to prepare for the arrival of the LSIs that include implementation of localized quarantine protocols.
“There are still a lot of LGUs which have zero cases of Covid-19 so we really have to understand their efforts of protecting their constituents from incoming travelers. This is the logic behind the importance of coordination as one of the requirements before a travel authority is issued,” he said.
Eleazar added that if the travel authority is removed and LSIs are allowed to travel using only a medical clearance certificate, the receiving LGUs will have no way of being informed about the arrival of the travelers in their respective areas.
“This would be a big problem for the receiving LGUs since they would be caught unprepared on the arrival of the LSIs. At the same time, the LSIs may end up being barred entry because of the existing local quarantine protocols. Either way, this poses a problem so coordination with receiving LGUs through the travel authority requirement is indeed necessary,” he said.
Since LSIs have been allowed to travel back to their hometowns, the issuance of travel authority has been added to the responsibility of the Philippine National Police (PNP) commanders as their policemen mainly man and supervise Quarantine Control Points where the document is being checked. The presence of the PNP in all cities and municipalities also made the police a good choice to facilitate the coordination on the arrival of the LSIs.
Eleazar said the JTF Covid Shield, mainly through the Philippine National Police (PNP), is bound to comply with the instructions especially from the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of the Emerging Infections Diseases (IATF-EID) through the National Task Force Against Covid-19, to control the movement of people as a tried-and-tested measure to contain the spread of the virus.
Since the fight against Covid-19 is a whole of government approach, Eleazar said they also have to take into consideration the local quarantine protocols of the LGUs which would receive the LSIs.
He said the speed or delay in the issuance of travel authority depends on the result of the coordination with the LGUs which are also implementing their own health safety protocols that include placing the arriving LSIs under quarantine.
“If there is no coordination with the LGU-destination, it would also be to the disadvantage of the LSIs and other travelers since there is a possibility that they would be barred entry and would be forced to stay at the borders of a town or city,” said Eleazar.
He cited the case wherein hundreds of LSIs were stranded between the boundary of Quezon and Bicol region at the height of the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the entire Luzon as they were not allowed entry due to the implementation of local quarantine rules.
“We do not want it to happen again and that is why the concept of travel authority was approved for the smooth travel of our LSIs,” said Eleazar.
He added that efforts have already been made to fast-track the release of travel authority in favor of the travelers.
This includes the order of PNP chief, Gen. Archie Gamboa, allowing chiefs of police and station commanders to issue a travel authority and Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año's directive on setting up a ‘One-Stop Shop’ in all cities and municipalities for this purpose.
“We have implemented measures to ease the burden of securing a Travel Authority, and our kababayans should understand that we still have to exercise control of the movement of people because this is essentially the rationale behind the implementation of quarantine protocols in the country,” he said. (By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan)
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