BONTOC Mayor Franklin Odsey is trying to close off Mountain Province’s capital town in a bid to prevent the spread of the Covid-19.
In an Executive Order signed March 9, the mayor suspended all tourism activities in the municipality with directives to all tour guides are directed not to receive guests, local or foreign for any purpose.
“Tourists who are merely passing through the municipality shall be advised to proceed to their intended destination and not linger within the municipality,” Odsey’s order said.
Crowd drawing activities have also been halted by the chief executive explaining a crowd constitutes 100 individuals or more which includes family reunions, festivals or fiestas and other merriments, school homecomings and athletic events.
Guidelines for weddings and wakes are also in place with orders to limit and ascertain safety of all.
“For humanitarian considerations, the conduct of weddings and wakes of relatives are exempted. Provided that the wedding celebrants and the family of the deceased undertake precautionary measures to ensure that their visitors have not come into areas where reported Covid-19 cases exist or are reported,” Odsey said.
For school activities, the mayor said the conduct of recognition or graduation and commencement exercises by private and public schools, should be held provided that the program not exceed five hours and reminded the directives from the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education should be primarily controlling and the executive order is merely be supplementary.
Odsey said the order will help capacitate government agencies and LGUs to immediately act to prevent loss of life, utilize appropriate resources to implement urgent and critical measures to contain or prevent the spread of the virus, mitigate its effects and impact to the community and prevent serious disruption of the functioning government and the community.