CONFUSION over Executive Order (EO) 5-N that Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia issued on Wednesday, March 25, 2020 that placed the province in a state of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), resulted in panic buying and long lines at both the south and north bus terminals in the cities of Cebu and Mandaue, respectively, as people who hail from the 44 towns and seven cities under the Capitol scampered to go home.
It might have been triggered by a simple utterance made by the governor that same day -- “We are moving towards a lockdown” – and the fact that the ECQ was supposed to take effect at 12:01 on Friday, March 27.
Those who live outside Cebu City had every reason to worry.
Aside from stricter home quarantine, an ECQ would mean the suspension of public transportation and regulations in basic provisions.
They would be trapped here in the city until noon of April 28. That is more than a month away. They would be alone without the company of their loved ones. Food and medicine in case they got sick would be hard to come by.
That must have been foremost in the minds of the people who lined up outside supermarkets, pharmacies and the bus terminals on Thursday.
But had they read the whole news report, they would have known that EO 5-N prohibited only “the entry of all persons arriving on international flights in the Province of Cebu.” It still allowed outbound passengers to leave Cebu.
EO 5-N also stated that movement of any and all cargo on any and all airports and seaports within the province during the ECQ would not be restricted as basic and essential goods would be given priority over other goods.
Then again, ECQ was uttered in the same breath as EO 5-N.
The public missed that part about the governor saying she would call for a meeting with local chief executives to discuss specific measures in the implementation of the provincewide ECQ.
So when Garcia declared that the ECQ in the whole of Cebu would take effect on Monday, March 30, it was already too late for the hundreds of people who had been in line for hours.