THE request of Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson to suspend the trips of locally stranded individuals to the province was approved.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has approved yesterday the suspension of trips of locally stranded individuals to Region VI including Bacolod City and Negros Occidental for two weeks starting yesterday, June 28 to curb the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
"Negros Occidental and Iloilo plus Region 8. Bacolod and Iloilo being the main ports and seaports that receive these LSIs. For Region 8, the whole region because apart from air and water transport it also gets LSIs by land transport," Loranzana who is also head of the National Task Force on addressing the pandemic said.
He said he has ordered the navy and coast guard to stop transporting people back to Bacolod and Iloilo cities in the Western Visayas region as well in the Eastern Visayas.
“We have to do this because the LSIs are the ones bringing the virus to the provinces. The data from Bacolod and Iloilo City bear this out. The LGUs asked for the suspension. We will have to come up with a better procedure to prevent this from happening,” the Defense secretary pointed out.
Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson earlier asked the national Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for a two-week halt on the entry of Negrense locally stranded individuals (LSIs) arriving on sea vessels from Manila to enable to provincial and local governments to declog their quarantine facilities.
Negros Occidental subjects all incoming passengers by air and sea to RT-PCR tests.
About 500 Negrense LSIs were expected to arrive in the province from Manila and Cebu yesterday, Lacson said.
“We have to get the (local government units) to agree to receive them. Their problem is that their quarantine facilities are limited and they don’t want to be overwhelmed,” Lorenzana said.
The quarantine facilities of the provincial government as well as those of the different local government units have been overwhelmed by returning LSIs.
Results of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests (RT PCR) tests in the province also showed that most of those who were tested positive were LSIs coming home to Negros Occidental.