P8M Bayanihan fund savings for b’gay isolation facilities

July 25, 2020 Headlines

The P8 million savings from the city’s P78 million Bayanihan fund for its coronavirus disease (Covid-19) response might be used for the establishment of barangay isolation centers.
Councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda said that there is a need to establish isolation centers in the barangay so that residents can be served near their homes and for them to be isolated there if they are suspect or showing Covid-19 like symptoms.
“We have to use the money now since it will go back to the national government by September 15,” Tabanda told the Philippine News Agency Thursday. Tabanda added that making use of the money for barangay isolation centers is a Covid response – related effort.
The proposal is congruent also to a directive of mayor Benjamin Magalong that residents exhibiting flu-like symptoms must go to its Barangay Health Emergency Teams which are given the training and added personnel to help stop the spread of the disease.
Tabanda said that not all the 128 barangays will have their isolation centers but only those that have are capable of providing the structure that can be used to accommodate people who need to be quarantined.
“People now can be quarantined in the barangay isolation center and not in their homes,” said Tabanda, who took notice of the two instances where a person infected two of his/her co-household.
Tabanda said that even returning overseas Filipino workers could now be triaged at the barangay isolation center. Tabanda made the proposal during the city council regular session last Monday, July 20, as the P18.1 million savings from the P20 million funding to help out jeepney drivers had been diverted to other usages including the construction of bicycle lanes in four major roads.
“I was against the realignment of the P18.1 million savings since it the mayor (Benjamin Magalong) may need it for Covid-19 related problems in the future. Now he has to go through the city council again to be able to get response fund,” she explained.
Her proposal came as the Department of Public Works and Highways through secretary Mark Villar committed P12 million for the put up of additional isolation quarters in the city. City administrator Bonifacio dela Pena, an engineer, said that P8 million will be used for the additional rooms while the remaining P4 million will be used to equipment to run the facility.
Baguio has one isolation quarters, the former Santo Nino Hospital which is now a 45-room isolation facility by the city and the Department of Health – Cordillera. The city, however, needs at least a 148-beds ready for use facility and is now looking at the Baguio Teachers Camp to answer the need. The BTC at present has 130-beds for quarantine purposes of OFWs.
De la Pena said that this could be converted to a 300-beds isolation facility.