ALL executive orders issued by Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio as a mitigating measure to combat the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) will now have “additional teeth” as the 19th City Council passed the institutionalization of the Davao City Covid-19 response policies.
The City Council, on Tuesday, March 24, passed under suspended rules, the institutionalization of the five issued EOs, which now have penalty clauses, under “An Ordinance Institutionalizing the Davao City Covid-19 Emergency Response Policies”.
These are EO No. 10, 12, 12-A, 15-A, and 16-A. The executive orders are guidelines on movement within the city and the operation or temporary closure of business establishments.
Under the ordinance, violations of Sections 1 to 11, which covers the issued EOs on community quarantine; land, sea, and air travels; curfew; special curfew for vulnerable sectors (senior citizens, minors, pregnant women, sick and immune-compromised individuals within Davao City); liquor ban; and funerals will have a P3,000 penalty for the first offense, and a P5,000 fine and/or imprisonment of not more than a year (at the discretion of the court) for the second and last offense.
As for Sections 12, 13, and 14 of the ordinance, a fine of P5,000 and imprisonment of not more than a year, at the discretion of the court, “without prejudice to the prosecution of other criminal actions” will be meted to the violators.”
Section 12 of the ordinance will penalize patients under monitoring (PUMs) who refuse to comply with the home quarantine or isolation; fail to fully comply with the terms of the home quarantine or isolation; and escape or avoid home quarantine or isolation after being defined as PUM.
Section 13, which covers patient under investigation (PUI) will penalize PUIs same as Section 12.
Under Section 14, persons who fail to immediately disclose their travel history to Covid-19 infected areas with local transmission, or exposure to known PUMs or PUIs, will also be penalized.
Councilor Mabel Sunga Acosta, ordinance proponent and committee head on peace and public safety, said there is no difference in the issued EOs.
“The main thing is our ordinance has penalties because under the Local Government Code, only the City Council can put penal clauses,” Acosta told Sunstar Davao in a phone interview.
She added Duterte-Carpio personally requested the local council to enact the ordinance which would help in enforcing the EOs.
City Council majority floor leader J. Melchor Quitain Jr., meanwhile, said they passed the item as urgent to help the city in strictly enforcing the community quarantine guidelines.