Mayor Isko Moreno made some way to help the health workers in Manila City affected by the community quarantine and public transportation ban.
Yesterday, the Manila City Government hired buses that are planned to use for the frontliners, health workers and some employees of Manila. Mayor Moreno personally inspected the buses.
Aside from offering free transportation to the COVID-19 front liners, Moreno signed executive order no. 17 that ordering motels and hotels in the city as a temporary shelter of the health workers working in hospitals in Manila.
The Mayor said that hotels should follow the executive order ‘voluntarily or involuntarily’.
Moreno cited the Local Government Code of 1991 which gave powers to mayors to “carry out such emergency measures as may be necessary” during a state of calamity.
President Duterte already put the whole country under a state of calamity due to COVID-19.
“Sa mga may ari ng hotel, I hope, in line of the call of the President to act in unison, in solidarity as Filipinos, I hope you will cooperate with the call of your city, and I’m grateful immediately some respondent already favorable to the executive order voluntarily,” he said.
There are around 531 rooms available for the health workers and Moreno already asked his staff to gather the list of all nurses and doctors working in the city.
According to Moreno, Sogo is going to provide 421 rooms, Eurotel to provide 50 rooms, and Town and Country to provide 60 rooms.
Moreno made the said executive order after the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) ordered all hotels to stop their operations except those with existing bookings with foreigners.
While Moreno seems already solved the problem of the health workers in his City, some Mayors like Vico Sotto are still looking for ways to help the frontliners in his city.
Yesterday, Sotto allowed tricycles to operate around the city to help health workers, however, the authorities rejected the Pasig Mayor’s order.
Cabinet Secretary Nograles said that tricycles are not allowed to operate during the community quarantine period because of the difficulties of practicing social distancing in a small vehicle.
However, Nograles suggested that Mayors like Sotto can look for bigger vehicles to be used to help health workers.
“Sa tricycle, let’s address that, concern talaga ang gobyerno sa paggamit ng tricycle dahil hindi namin lubos makita o maintindihan kung paano mag social distancing sa tricylce, number one,” Nograles said.
“Number two, ang concern po ng LGU ay ganyan, maari namang gumawa ng mga initiatives ang mga LGU, with regard to vehicles na hindi naman kailangan tricycle ang gamitin, so may means po ang LGU na gumamit ng other means of transportation, meron po silang sariling sasakyan o di kaya’y gumamit sila ng sasakyan ng iba at makiusap, or other means,” he added.