PEOPLE rendering “essential” services or working in industries permitted to already resume operations are allowed entry and exit between general community (GCQ) and modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) areas, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said on Tuesday.
Roque said the policy is contained in the Omnibus Guidelines on the Interzonal and Intrazonal Movement among quarantined areas approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
The guidelines were issued after the IATF announced over the weekend the new quarantine classifications of the different cities and provinces in the country.
The cities of Cebu and Mandaue remain under the strict enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) until May 31.
Reclassified under MECQ were Metro Manila, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Zambales, Laguna, and the city of Angeles. The rest of the country were placed under GCQ.
PROHIBITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS
The latest guidelines released by the office of Roque contained the following prohibitions:
- Entry and movement of “non-essential” people in ECQ areas. Non-essential people include the elderly, children and workers of businesses which have not yet been authorized to resume operations.
- Entry and movement of non-essential people in MECQ areas.
- Exit of non-essential people from MECQ and entry to ECQ areas.
- Exit of non-essential people from MECQ and entry to GCQ areas.
Roque said movement of people within GCQ areas are allowed, except for leisure purposes, as well as the transit of people between GCQ areas and to areas that are not covered by any community quarantine.
The following are allowed entry to all categories:
- Returning or repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)
- Returning overseas Filipinos (OFs)
- Persons transported through the efforts of the national government (like stranded students and tourists)
- Health and emergency personnel
- Government officials
- Frontline personnel
- Humanitarian assistance actors (HAAs)
- Persons travelling for medical/humanitarian reasons
- Persons going to the airport for travel abroad
Roque also said all types of cargoes by land, air or sea within and across areas under different levels of community quarantines are allowed and should remain unhampered. Up to five workers per company from the logistics sector shall be allowed to transit across areas placed under any form of community quarantine.
