138 ECQ violators nabbed in Negros Oriental

By Mary Judaline Partlow  

• 
  
 
• 
  
 
• 
  

ECQ CHECKPOINT. A checkpoint personnel tests the body temperature of police officers riding a patrol car going to Dumaguete City. Police provincial director Col. Julian Entoma said they make sure that enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) measures are strictly followed, with already 138 people arrested for various violations since April 3. (Photo by Judy Flores Partlow)

DUMAGUETE CITY – The police in Negros Oriental arrested 138 people for violation of protocols under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

Provincial police director, Col. Julian Entoma on Monday evening said the total number of violators covered April 3, the start of the ECQ, up to April 12.

Those arrested in various cities and towns were in violation of the curfew, Revised Penal Code 151, Republic Act 7581, otherwise known as "The Price Act" and Republic Act 11332, the “Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act”, he said.

Entoma said 17 who are at-large managed to escape arrest during police operations on illegal gambling/cockfighting.

“That is what the organizers who were arrested told the police, and so we are also including the at-large suspects in the filing of complaints,” he said in Cebuano.

Gov. Roel Degamo had earlier placed the province under a state of calamity and ordered the implementation of the ECQ from April 3 to 18.

To control the mobility of people and prevent a community transmission of Covid-19, quarantine passes are given to the public with regulated hours for travel, with the exemption of those in government and other sectors that supply the necessities of the people, aside from other restrictions such as curfew hours.

However, in a meeting with the provincial Inter-Agency Task Force on Covid-19 Monday, it was a unanimous recommendation that the ECQ be extended, although the length of the extension has yet to be discussed with local chief executives and other stakeholders.

The governor is expected to issue an executive order on April 16 on the ECQ extension. (PNA)