THE Quezon City government yesterday shut down the ritzy Cisco’s Bar in San Francisco del Monte for violation of health protocols, particularly the guideline on social distancing and the mandatory wearing of face masks when in public places.
Quezon City Task Force Disiplina head Rannie Ludovica said the bar management will be charged for allowing the holding of a birthday party, where guests were seen in a video partying and drinking alcohol without any face masks and transferring from one table to another.
A video of the party, which supposedly happened during the weekend, went viral on several social media platforms.
“Someone was celebrating his or her birthday. Those who knew each other where transferring from one table to another. Many health protocols were definitely violated during the event,” Ludovica said in Filipino.
Ludovico said the city government will also consult with its legal department regarding the legal accountability of those seen partying in the video, some of whom are supposedly so-called “media influencers.”
“’Yung isa diyan involved pa nga doon sa flight steward incident,” he also said without elaborating.
Quezon City legal officer Niño Casimiro said the gastro bar will be indefinitely closed. “We are going to check and review the video and the result of the investigation, if the bar could still operate or not,” he said.
He added, though, that initial investigation has shown that there is sufficient evidence showing that the bar management was remiss in enforcing the health and safety protocols of the city government and the national government.
In Oriental Mindoro, some resorts in Puerto Galera town, a popular tourist spot, have decided to require fully vaccinated tourists to present negative RT PCR tests when booking for accommodations.
In a radio interview, Puerto Galera Mayor Rocky Ilagan could not immediately say the number of Puerto Galera resorts that are requiring RT-PCR test from fully vaccinated tourists but said it’s “very minimal.”
“We respect their decision to require RT-PCR (test) but majority of the resorts do not require this. Majority of the resort owners allow fully vaccinated tourists (without RT-PCR test),” he said.
Ilagan has given resorts the prerogative to require RT-PCR test to fully-vaccinated tourists, through a resolution issued last Friday.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases has issued a resolution allowing fully vaccinated individuals to just present their vaccination cards when traveling from one local government unit to another, without the need to present a negative RT-PCR test.
Amid concerns by some local government officials that this could lead to a possible surge of COVID-19 cases, the task force later decided to give the LGUs the prerogative to require fully vaccinated travelers negative RT-PCR test results.
“We consulted stakeholders, barangay captains and health professionals before arriving at this decision,” Ilagan said, referring to his decision to give resorts in the town the prerogative to require fully vaccinated tourists to present RT-PCR test.
“Many guests are strict, they really want to go to resorts that require RT-PCR test,” Ilagan said.
He said all tourists, including those fully vaccinated, will be required to undergo triage and interview at the border by health professionals.
If the tourists are fully vaccinated, Ilagan said they will be asked about details of their vaccination.
“If there are signs and symptoms (during examination), even if they have vaccination cards, definitely you will have to go back where you came from,” he added.
Meanwhile, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire yesterday seeing local cases of the Delta variant could already be a foregone conclusion just like the Alpha and Beta variants.
“These variants, in our opinion with our experts, there will really come a time that they will be able to enter our communities,” said Vergeire.
This, she admitted, means that the travel bans and strict border control the government is implementing will only just delay its local spread.
“The strategies we are doing will just try to buy us time so that we can prepare, prepare the system, and prepare the people for the time that it will already be in our communities,” said the health official.
“We are just very hopeful that our border control will be able to mitigate or prevent and avoid the entry of these variants (in our communities),” she said, adding: “We think it has been effective so far because we have been able to identify the individuals with Delta variants, isolate them, and prevent them from entering the communities.” — With Victor Reyes and Gerard Naval
