BAGUIO CITY – The City Council approved on first reading a proposed ordinance imposing physical distancing in all activities in the city.
The ordinance authored by all members of the city legislative body defined physical distancing as maintaining a distance of at least 1-meter gap between two or more people.
The ordinance adds it will be a declared policy of the city government to impose physical distancing among all persons in all their transactions during the duration of the extended Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine and similar public health emergencies in the future.
The ordinance stipulates it shall be the duty of all government and private offices, and owners of all business establishments operating in the city to implement physical distancing among their patrons or customers, and that the same are further required to post signages in their establishments and offices of the mandatory physical distancing policy, including the prescribed penalties.
Under the proposed ordinance, violators of the pertinent provisions of the measure shall be fined P500 for the first offense, P1000 for the second offense and P3,000 for the third offense.
For businessmen and owners of establishments, violators shall be fined P3,000 for the first offense, P4,000 for the second offense, and P5,000 and cancellation of business permit for the third offense.
The ordinance tasks the City Health Services Office (CHSO), the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) and the Public Order and Safety Division (POSD) and City Permits and Licensing Division under the City Mayor’s Office to be the lead city government offices in the implementation of the provisions of the proposed city legislative measure.
Earlier, a memorandum from Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medaldia ordered the stringent implementation of social distancing as one measure in the COVID-19 crisis.
Moreover, Cabinet Secretary Carlo Nograles, designated spokesperson of the national inter-agency task force on the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, consistently stated in press conferences that physical distancing will be the new normal until the Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine will be lifted or until the threat of COVID is gone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) clarified that the use of physical distancing is a better term than social distancing since the emphasis is the maintenance of physical distance among people so that the disease will not be transmitted.
Epidemiologists and environment health experts explained that physical distancing is a way of creating a barrier of physical distance between two or more people so that transmission of virus can be prevented or halted and it is a means to slowdown the spread of COVID-19 which has been found to effective and important because the said practice slows down infection rate and prevents the unmanageable peak of cases as reported out.
By Dexter A. See
