{"id":259114,"date":"2020-06-24T01:00:53","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T05:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=259114"},"modified":"2020-06-24T01:00:53","modified_gmt":"2020-06-24T05:00:53","slug":"palace-says-cimatus-role-in-cebu-tantamount-to-acts-of-prrd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/06\/24\/palace-says-cimatus-role-in-cebu-tantamount-to-acts-of-prrd\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace says Cimatu\u2019s role in Cebu \u2018tantamount\u2019 to acts of PRRD"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cimatu would have to notify the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) about the specific actions to be taken. (PNA file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 All actions to be taken by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu in leading the fight against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Cebu City will be \u201ctantamount\u201d to the acts of President Rodrigo Duterte, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Cimatu, whom the President assigned to oversee the Covid-19 situation in Cebu City, is free to exercise \u201call powers\u201d to slow down the spread of the virus as cases in the city exceeded 4,000.<\/p>\n

Cimatu would have to notify the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) about the specific actions to be taken.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mandate really is to do everything that can be done to avoid a spike in cases in Cebu City and to manage the number of new cases being reported from the City,\u201d he said in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel\u2019s Headstart.<\/p>\n

More than just giving recommendations, Roque said Cimatu would also have to give the IATF-EID regular updates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will go there, he will find out what the situation on the ground is, he will make not just recommendations but will implement what he thinks should be done in a period of one week, and all he has to do is keep the IATF posted on the steps being taken,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Roque said the President could also issue an executive order to allow Cimatu to freely exercise those powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the actions of Gen. Cimatu are tantamount to acts of the President. And if need be, the President will issue executive orders to give legal validity to the actions being taken by Gen. Cimatu,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cimatu can exercise these powers because Roque said \u201che has been the beneficiary of delegated authority from the President.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that although we have equality of power between equal branches of government, the President, because of procedural powers, is, in reality, and in theory, the most powerful. So he (Cimatu) gets to exercise all the extraordinary powers of the Office of the President in dealing with the pandemic in Cebu City,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Among these powers, Roque said, is allowing Cimatu to seek help from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in enforcing the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Cebu City.<\/p>\n

He, however, assured that seeking help from the military should not be compared to martial law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve normally done this, resorted to asking the Armed Forces to perform civilian duties. So this is not martial law. This has been decided upon by the Supreme Court. And this is as far as enforcing the ECQ in Cebu is concerned,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that the police are normally assigned to enforce the ECQ but noted if the police are not enough, then the military can enter the picture.<\/p>\n

Cimatu, who is currently in Cebu City, will be \u201cgoing down to the barangays to find out the totality of the problem\u201d in implementing quarantine protocols.<\/p>\n

He, however, dismissed the possibility of sending police or military personnel down to the villages to arrest quarantine protocol violators.<\/p>\n

Data from the Cebu City Health Department as of Tuesday showed the locality has a total of 4,479 Covid-19 infections with 2,213 active cases, 2,177 recoveries, and 89 deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  MANILA\u00a0\u2013 All actions to be taken by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu in leading the fight against the coronavirus disease …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":259115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259116,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259114\/revisions\/259116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}