We are very happy with the decision of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio to utilize both public and private facilities to serve as quarantine areas for persons suspected with CoViD infection. That move is most welcome.
Yes, we learned that Mayor Sara is now using the still untapped Drug Rehabilitation Center in Baguio District to serve as a facility for Davao residents now confirmed to have CoViD. We believe it could be a very safe facility both for the virus victims and the people residing in Davao City in general and in the specific barangay where the center is located.
As of last weekend, we learned that the lady mayor had already instructed her men to hasten the installation of additional equipment and other things are needed to make the center responsive to the needs of the quarantined persons.
Aside from the Baguio Drug Rehabilitation Center the mayor also accepted the offer of a local businessman to have a motel he owned in Maa refurbished and sanitized to make it appropriate for the stay of CoViD-infected individuals for a period of not less than fourteen days.
Another public building eyed to be used for quarantine purposes is a 3-storey Alternative Learning Center located within the downtown area but is effectively isolated because it is inside a school compound that is fully-fenced. For now the no-class mandate is still in effect and is likely to continue for as long as the CoVid incidence stays. Hence, there is no danger of students contracting the virus.
These three facilities are over and above the ones presently offered by the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC).
In other words Davao residents should now feel that the spread of the virus could be possibly deterred because those who are infected will be fully kept away from the rest of the public.
Wise move by our lady local government executive. She’s now showing her true worth.
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Another smart move by the lady mayor is her ordering the removal of benches in front of sari-sari or sundry stores in various parts of the city.
This is her way of doing away with facilities for people to loiter around or mill in front of sundry establishments purportedly to keep away boredom.
Clearly there is no denying the fact that benches in front of small stores in the vicinity are invitations to people to get out of their houses. What is likely to follow is drinking sessions and once the “standby’s” start getting inebriated the likelihood is that it would be difficult for both the store owner and the members of their families to have them back to the confines of their residences.
We have also noted that the lady mayor is trying to combine persuasion and “intimidation” of sort to have her constituents comply with her mandate of keeping themselves inside their homes.
One area where even the barangay captain had already expressed exasperation is Calinan in the third district of the city.
Despite the mayor’s order to put the entire city under lockdown, she herself noted that residents of Calinan seemingly took her half-hearted. Until Thursday last week there was no significant change in the number of people going to the barangay commercial center to do business or continue their normal ways.
Barangay Captain Ursiso Ungab, a cousin of Congressman Sid Ungab who is a retired policeman, could only grind his teeth because somehow he felt his constituents ignored his plea for them to stay at home.
And his patience was finally on its lowest when his barangay was singled out by Mayor Sara as one place whose residents do not seem to mind the CoViD infection.
In a statement the mayor pointed to Calinan as one place with people unmindful of the health pandemic.
Thus, early last week when the mayor issued a statement that she was going to tour the Calinan central area Captain Ungab issued a warning that he was closing the center of the barangay last Thursday afternoon.
The warning apparently sank in on the minds of the barangay residents as well as those residing in neighboring villages but did their marketing or selling their farm produce in Calinan’s commercial center that they trooped to the market sites and did a seeming hoard buying for everything they needed for a period of time.
But no, Captain Ungab merely shut down economic activities in the afternoon of last Thursday to allow for the disinfection of the roads and different commercial establishments. It’s a preventive move.
Of course that was one lesson for the residents to learn. We hope the rest of us Davaoenos who have remained hard-headed under the present circumstances will also learn from the same experience of the residents of barangay Calinan
