THE Police Regional Office (PRO)-Cordillera continues to be the regional command in the country with the lowest number of coronavirus infections.
Police Brigadier General R'win Pagkalinawan, PRO-Cordillera director, said this is due to strict implementation of security and health protocols implemented for protection of both the civilians and police personnel.
"Since the start, we continue with a no letup policy on our security procedures being implemented by our police personnel in terms of the coronavirus or Covid-19. Our personnel are observing strict procedures for those entering our area of jurisdiction in established checkpoints and our personnel are well-protected complete with protective equipment to which I do not see anyone of them being infected by the virus," Pagkalinawan said.
Most of personnel recorded to be infected with the virus were those who went to their homes in the provinces and the newly assigned policemen in the region previously assigned in Metro Manila.
Pagkalinawan noted that among the police regional offices in the country, the PRO-Cordillera remains to be the regional office with the lowest number of Covid-19 cases.
"Our procedure here in the Cordillera is very systematic because of effective identification even if they report to their duty area or assignment having no infection from Covid-19 or are initially asymptomatic, they are strictly required to undergo swabbing at designated checkpoints and will have to wait at the triage areas. We continue to practice rapid testing and eventually if they turn out positives would have to undergo RTPCR testing," he said.
At present, PRO-Cordillera listed 13 personnel under quarantine in different areas in the region, while a total of 12 personnel were recorded to have been infected since the start of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
"We strictly order these personnel to finish the required 14- to 21-day quarantine to make sure that they would not infect anyone, and we have no cases of police personnel having difficulty in breathing aside from no personnel that have died due to Covid, which we saw were all asymptomatic. Usually, once they come from Benguet, for example, where they have been discovered positive but have recovered and would be reassigned to Mountain Province, they would have to undergo another 14 days of quarantine because we do not want our Police to be the cause of infection or the spreader of the virus in the community," Pagkalinawan added.