Baguio City, Benguet Mayors Brace To Protect Towns Amid COVID Surge

June 22, 2020 Metro BLISTT

BAGUIO CITY (June 18, 2020) — Baguio City and Benguet town mayors are now harmonizing efforts to protect their turfs amid the surge in COVID19 cases.
They vowed to link arms in contact tracing, testing, border control and other policies during a conference middle of last week at the Baguio City Inter-Agency Task Force meeting led by Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong where La Trinidad Mayor Romeo Salda, Victorio Palangdan of Itogon, Clarita Sal-ongan of Tuba, Ruben Tinda-an of Buguias, Armando Lauro of Tublay, Thomas Wales of Bokod, Frenzel Ayong of Mankayan and Vice Mayor Arthur Baldo of Sablan attended.
Mayor Magalong said the spike in cases is alarming and if unabated, ‘might result to the doubling of figure in no time thus the need for synchronized courses of action.’ “As neighbors, we have to work together and protect each other because anything that happens in one locality will impact the other,” the Baguio City mayor urged.
To help the towns develop their contact tracing systems, Magalong offered to share the city’s strategy including the software and capability building for free. “Science-based Battle VS COVID?”
A 14-day training and immersion was organized in the city for the municipalities’ police operatives and information technology experts to build their capability in tracking down contacts and arrest virus transmission. Magalong said the system is a “powerful tool in establishing the entire picture on the links of the patients” and will help local government units integrate data considering that the contacts of some of the cases are interlinked.
On border issues, stricter measures will be adopted especially against those abusing their food and other passes. Tuba and Baguio agreed to restrict chicken manure delivery cargoes that do not
have business permits from Benguet.
The police forces of Baguio and La Trinidad will confer to align their border procedures. The LGUs also agreed to ramp up testing of their vulnerable sectors like the vegetable dealers and truck drivers.
All municipalities were requested to submit list of priorities for swab and rapid testing subject to availability of kits. Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center Medical Officer Ricardo RunÞez Jr. said there are test kit allocations for Benguet province but are short in consumables. Magalong offered some of the city’s rapid test kits for those who will not be covered by the swab tests as he promised to help work out more supplies of test kits and consumables.
The Baguio and Benguet mayors also agreed to align their policies particularly on the liquor ban and other security measures.
Magalong also offered to include La Trinidad in the implementation of the cashless transactions for public utility vehicles now being worked out by the city government to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
Artemio Dumlao/ABN