DAVAO CITY—The evening-to-dusk curfew here has been lifted, along with the ban on sale of liquor, when the city was placed on the less restrictive Alert Level 3 classification of local government units on Covid-19 infection.
The downgrading of restrictions was contained in the Executive Order 59 that Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio signed on Monday.
The curfew was lifted beginning on Tuesday and to cover this period until January 15 when a new round of quarantine protocols would be announced anew. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the city was imposing an 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew on minors. During the lockdown since last year, curfew hours would hover between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., and until dawn, depending on the ebb or rise of infection rate of the virus.
The EO has also relaxed on the sale of liquor, from a total ban since last year, to the current liquor ban hours from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. This was also the previous liquor ban period in the city before the pandemic.
Despite easing of the liquor ban, the EO still restricts the consumption of any intoxicating drinks in public places that include bars, restaurants, sari-sari, or retail, stores, markets and other business establishments. Liquors should only be consumed inside homes and private places.
Drinking outside the gates of residences, along streets, pathways and alleys, is prohibited under the EO.
Duterte-Carpio has also directed the task force on Covid-19 and other implementers to follow the national guideline on the Alert Level 3 classification “and not to deviate or modify it to avoid confusion.”
The downgrading to the less restrictive level came as she admitted that the city was unlikely to achieve herd immunity by November 15, saying that there was a noticeable decrease in the number of residents going to the vaccination sites.
She ascribed this to the difficulty by some residents to balance between their work and the scheduled vaccination and to the refusal of others to get vaccinated.
She also confirmed reports of some village leaders or heads of small religious sects forcing their members to refrain from availing of the vaccination. At least two cases were reported in the northern rural district of Marilog and Paquibato where their pastors went to the vaccination center to forbid their members from getting the Covid shots even as they were already queuing up for the inoculation.
One case in Talomo was about a drunk husband choking his wife after being told by a neighbor that the latter availed of the vaccine. The wife got herself vaccinated to avail of the assistance from the barangay.
Meanwhile, Duterte-Carpio said she would defer her State of the City Address to a later date “when the noise of politics has died down.” She said it would be sometime after November 15. Her delivery would still be made via livestream.
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