THE Davao City Police Office (DCPO) assures the safety of every tourist and Dabawenyo during the Kadayawan celebration.
“Wala naman talagang (There’s no) direct threat sa (to) Davao City but we are not taking it for granted. In fact, we are always in Level 3, because we always want to maintain our level of alertness, our level of response, and high level of security especially that we are now celebrating Kadayawan,” Colonel Alberto Lupaz, Director of DCPO, said in an interview with SunStar Davao on August 15, 2022.
Lupaz said they will be deploying some 5,000 security personnel for the main events: Indak indak sa Kadayawan on August 20 and Pamulak and Pitik Kadayawan on August 21.
“Kulang ‘yong ating personnel (We lack personnel), we requested augmentation coming from the Regional Headquarters. So as of now, we are already 100 percent ready (for the two main events),” Lupaz said.
Meanwhile, Lupaz said they will strictly implement the city's face mask policy.
“Madali lang naman mag-spot ng tao na hindi nagma-mask (We can easily spot people not wearing facemasks), so we will really apprehend if they will not follow. In fact ang dami na nating nahuli so if they will not follow lalo na nandoon sila sa front (we already cited a lot of violators), we will advise them to wear their facemask but if they will continue not to do the order na sinabi natin, then wala tayong choice kung di hulihin sila (but if they refused to do so, we don’t have a choice but to arrest or give them citation),” Lupaz said.
Under City Ordinance No. 0307-20, face masks must be worn in public. Violators are subject to fines of P500 for the first offense, P2,000 for the second, and P5,000 or one month's imprisonment for the third.
Since January 1, 2022, DCPO has apprehended a total of 12,525 people for not wearing face masks and already issued citation tickets to 1,584 violators from May 14 to July 19, 2022. KSD