Bacolod City – Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson issued an executive order implementing uniform travel protocols in a bid to avert the surge of coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 cases in the province.
Lacson signed Executive Order No. 21-18-A Implementing the Uniform Travel Protocols Under COVID-19 IATF-EID Resolution No. 101, Series of 2021 with Revisions.
The EO takes effect on April 1, 2021.
In the EO, Lacson said all travelers to Negros Occidental are required to undergo RT- PCR test for COVID-19 and undergo quarantine upon arrival until their negative results are out.
The cost of the COVID-19 swab test and quarantine will be shouldered by the provincial government.
Earlier, Lacson issued Executive Order 21 18 adopting Resolution 101 of the National Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19 that requires travelers to be swabbed only from their point of origin and no longer to be quarantined upon arrival in the point of their destination.
Lacson blamed the eased travel protocol based on NIATF Resolution 101 for the surge of COVID cases in the province.
Currently Negros Occidental reported 327 active cases and 225 deaths. The province now has 7,383 cases and 6,831 recoveries.
Lacson also cited the discovered modus operandi of unscrupulous individuals at the ports of Manila selling fake negative RT-PCR results to travelers bound for the province.
Eight returning Kabankalan City residents admitted paying a certain amount to secure a negative RT-PCR test results without undergoing swab testing just to comply with the requirements before boarding a plane or ship going to the province, he lamented.
The fake RT-PCR negative result is reportedly sold at P900.
“That is why it is better that we should conduct the swab tests here,” the governor said.
(Dolly Yasa via The Daily Guardian (TDG), photo courtesy of TDG)