Baguio, Benguet mayors agree to control people mobility with Covid rise

By Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – Mayors of Baguio City and the towns of La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba and Tublay have agreed to cooperate to bring down Covid-19 cases and avoid an NCR (National Capital Region) Plus scenario.
    In a meeting last April 6, Mayors Benjamin Magalong of Baguio City, Romeo Salda of La Trinidad,  Victorio Palangdan of Itogon, Manuel Munar Jr. of Sablan, Clarita Sal-ongan of Tuba and Armando Lauro of Tublay agreed to impose measures to control people mobility to lessen rising cases and shortage in health facilities.
    In a joint advisory, the mayors cited need to impose inter-locality travel restrictions to minimize non-essential travels to and from each locality and lessen mobility.
    “During our meeting, we discussed two urgent concerns. Our health facilities are reaching full capacity and we have a total of 3,165 active Covid-19 cases in the Cordillera Administrative Region,” the  chief executives noted.
    “Health experts have agreed that mobility plays a huge part in community transmission thus we have agreed that there is an urgent necessity to implement methods to minimize non-essential travel between and within our respective areas for a limited period of time so that we can help each other bring our collective cases down and avoid a possible escalation of quarantine classifications similar to what happened in NCR Plus.
    The mayors appealed to their constituents for “patience and cooperation in this bid to curtail our cases while the situation is still management within our region”
    The following protocols were thus implemented from April 8-22:
     *Authorized Persons Outside of Residence (APORs) and workers in permitted industries are allowed  passage upon presentation of any of the following: ID (employment or task force or contact tracer); certificate of employment; business permit; proof of appointment for transaction in any gov't or private agency, instrumentality or office; confirmed medical appointment in any government or private health care facility/provider;
     *Residents traveling between BLISTT localities to access essential goods or services may do so on assigned market schedules to be provided and announced by each LGU in subsequent advisories.  For Baguio residents, travel within BLISTT to access goods and services will be allowed on Wednesdays and Saturdays only.
    *Unhampered passage for cargo, delivery and logistics services for essential and non-essential goods, food products and public utilities and travelers on emergency and medical purposes; and
    *Persons below 15 or over 65 and those immunocompromised are strongly encouraged to avoid unnecessary travels outside of their homes except for indispensable purposes like medical reasons or for extremely important appointments.
    People were also reminded to practice minimum public health standards at all times and in all places. 
    “Let us shield our households, especially the vulnerable members of our family from this virus by practicing extra precautions be it outside of our homes or in the presence of our loved ones,” they said.