Davao City – As Davao Region opens up for more business and economic activities following the downtrend of COVID19 cases, the Regional Inter-agency Task Force (RIATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases XI and the Regional Task Force Against COVID19 XI have released a uniform set of guidelines to control the movement into the region.
RIATF chairperson and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG XI) regional director Alex Roldan bared in the One Davao Virtual Presser that the newly-released guidelines through Joint RIATF-RTF XI Resolution 01 is aimed primarily to regulate inter-regional movement applicable along regional border controls.
Roldan emphasized that the guidelines is just a reiteration of the ones released by the IATF, however, Davao Region reviewed and ensured that actual situations in the region are addressed in the said resolution.
“ Naa na karon sa mga LGUs ang desisyon sa paghimo sa timeframes ug paunsa ni pag-implement,” Roldan said.
He also stressed that intra-regional movement or movement within the region, shall be governed by local issuances of respective LGUs.
The joint resolution allows for the movement of the following Authorized Persons Outside of Residence (APOR) such as health and emergency frontline services and uniformed personnel, government officials and employees on official travel and business, duly-authorized humanitarian assistance actors, persons traveling for medical or medical reasons, persons going to and from the airport, anyone crossing zones for work, and public utility vehicle operators.
Returning residents of the region who are non-APOR must present identification card showing residence or any other proof of residence and a negative RT-PCR test results taken within 72 hours.
The region allows entry of tourists that are non-resident of Region XI as long as they can present a negative RT-PCR test results and a result booking confirmation.
For travelers who are merely passing through the region are only allowed to stay within a specified time determined by the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Cargoes and goods movement must remain unhampered; however, personnel of delivery vehicles are only up to a maximum of five person, must undergo usual symptom screening protocol at port of destination’s entry.
The RIATF chairperson appealed to the public to understand and follow these border control measures as these are but a way of balancing the prevention of COVID19 surge while allowing the economic activities in the region.
“We have learned the lessons before when we isolated ourselves at the cost of losing so many jobs and businesses. We are now wiser as we continue to control the COVID19 cases and tighten the monitoring of the movement of people into the region,” he said.
(Frances Mae Macapagat, PIA-XI | Michael Manguhig, RPN DXKT Davao OIC)