BAGUIO City will start implementing the face shield ordinance starting March 17.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said arrests and penalties will be imposed against violators in accordance with the city ordinance.
“We would like to inform our residents and visitors or tourists to strictly adhere to this ordinance on wearing of face shields as appropriate arrests and penalties will be implemented by our law enforcement agencies,” Magalong said.
The chief executive clarified that those undergoing physical exercise will be exempted while conducting physical activities but are advised to wear their face masks and shields after.
Under the ordinance, violators will be fined P500 on first offense, P1,000 on second offense and P2,000 on third offense, including cancellation of business permit, if applicable.
If the violator is a minor, the accompanying parent or guardian will be assessed the corresponding fine.
All public transportations are asked to comply with the “no face mask and no face shield, no ride” policy.
Magalong, meanwhile, called on hotel and restaurant owners to implement their own antigen testing as the City has secured good pricing from several suppliers.
“In fact, we will be able to continue the antigen testing in our triage which now costs P350 for residents and P500 for tourists. But since we were able to receive P1.8 million from the Department of Tourism through Secretary (Bernadette Romulo) Puyat, we would like to subsidize this for the tourists at P350 also,” the chief executive stated.
Magalong encouraged the collaboration of the private sector, particularly the Hotel and Restaurants Association of Baguio, to follow the lead of two tourism-related facilities in the city that will have their own antigen testing facilities for their guests.
On the implementation of the uniformed travel protocol, members of the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba and Tublay (Blistt) recently met to unify its efforts on its implementation particularly on border control.
“We were able to discuss with members of BLISTT last Saturday and just the same, we will implement the use of HDF or health declaration form since we were able to detect the increase in mobility in our area which is why we should expect an increase in cases here in our area. The good news is that we were able to control the transmission in our BPO’s, we are currently monitoring one ESL facility within the BGH rotunda having 51 clustered cases which continuous to increase but we were able to quarantine many of our affected personnel there while isolating their employees that were positive so we are expecting that in the next few days, we will see a decrease in cases in the said facility,” Magalong added.