Over 300 cops, soldiers to enforce 2-week Navotas lockdown

Eleazar said he has already met with Mayor Toby Tiangco regarding measures and other strategies that would be enforced in the city possibly to contain the movement of residents.(File Photo: PIO NCRPO/Facebook)

MANILA – The Joint Task Force Covid Shield on Tuesday said it will deploy 348 policemen and soldiers to Navotas City to help local police in implementing the lockdown ordered by the city government due to the surge of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases.

In a statement, Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, task force commander, said augmentation force will come from the Northern Police District Mobile Forces Battalion, National Capital Region Police Office Regional Mobile Forces Battalion, Special Action Force, Philippine National Police (PNP) Maritime Group, and Armed Forces of the Philippines Joint Task Force-NCR.

They would be deployed to help enforce the lockdown which takes effect at 5 a.m. of July 16 until 11:59 p.m. of July 29.

Eleazar said he has already met with Mayor Toby Tiangco regarding measures and other strategies that would be enforced in the city possibly to contain the movement of residents.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año earlier instructed the JTF Covid Shield to coordinate and assist the city government in the lockdown order.

Año said compliance with the lockdown rules is necessary to ensure that transmission of the virus is contained while other government agencies are busy identifying, isolating, and treating those who have been infected.

“Our task is to contain the unnecessary movement of people and keep all residents at home except for the medical front-liners and other people who are authorized to go out. The other task is to ensure that APOR (Authorized Persons Outside Residence) shall follow the health protocols,” said Eleazar.

Based on the latest data, Navotas has almost 1,000 cases with more than half of them are active cases. At least 325 cases have recovered while 59 residents died of the infection.

The 220 beds set up by the city government for its infected residents have already reached full capacity.

Eleazar said based on his discussion with Tiangco, employees would still be allowed to continue reporting to work.

A quarantine pass will be given to each family but they will only be allowed to go out of their house based on the schedules that will be prepared by the city government, especially the barangay officials.

Most of the policemen will be deployed to set up checkpoints and conduct regular patrol to ensure that there will be no unnecessary movement of local residents.

Personnel from the PNP Maritime Group, on the other hand, will be deployed to regularly patrol the coastline of Navotas.