Wearing of face mask, curfew, distancing protocols to continue

DESPITE the downgrading of Cagayan de Oro from general community quarantine (GCQ) to modified general community quarantine (MGCQ), regulatory measures will still be implemented in the city as provided for in Ordinance No. 13859-2020.

Authored by Councilor Ian Mark Nacaya, the ordinance amends Ordinance No. 13855-2020, otherwise known as the Community Quarantine Guidelines Rules and Regulations of 2020, to include regulatory measures after the official lifting of the community quarantine in Cagayan de Oro.

Nacaya said through the ordinance, the City Council headed by Vice Mayor Raineir Joaquin Uy authorized Mayor Oscar Moreno to extend non-pharmaceutical interventions even if the city is no longer under community quarantine.

He said these interventions include the wearing of face mask, physical distancing, and the imposition of curfew as provided for in Articles V, VII, and IX of Ordinance No. 13855-2020, among others.

The ordinance imposes a penalty of community service to violators of these provisions to be administered by the City Public Services Office (CPSO) or the punong barangay of the barangay where the violation was committed.

For the first offense, violators will render two hours of community service, for the second offense, four hours of community service and third and subsequent offenses, eight hours of community service.

Nacaya is also reminding business establishments, private and government offices to continue to observe social distancing of office tables; undertake precautionary measures such as the provision of sanitation tent, footbath, disinfection equipment and as much as practicable, implement rotating schedules, skeletal force, work-from-home schemes due to tight office spaces and to sanitize the office after working hours.

Cagayan de Oro has been placed under MGCQ starting June 1 upon the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Councilor Nacaya said the ordinance was approved to protect constituents of the city from Covid-19 and other infectious diseases even after the lifting of the community quarantine in Cagayan de Oro. (SP)