Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz appealed to the Bacolod City government for common protocols for returning residents.
Diaz said the provincial government is concerned with the “different protocols” of Bacolod which is not under the jurisdiction of the province, being a highly urbanized city.
“We have been calling out that our protocols should be uniform. While we want to create a Negros Occidental bubble, how can we do that if one local government unit does not follow the same protocol? We will have a gaping hole in the middle of Negros,” he added.
Bacolod is open to non-essential travel or those for leisure, vacation, and others, provided that tourists comply with the requirements specified in Executive Order 1, series of 2021, or an order establishing the consolidated guidelines for travel into the city, issued by Mayor Evelio Leonardia recently.
One requirement is a negative RT-PCR result with the test taken within three days before the date of travel to Bacolod.
On the other hand, Negros Occidental will remain closed to tourists, as announced by Diaz earlier.
Department of Health Region 6 records showed that Bacolod City has 127 active Covid-19 cases as of January 27, compared to the 115 of Negros Occidental, that is composed of 31 towns and cities, as of January 26. (Dolly Yasa via tdg, photo by tdg)