MANKAYAN, Benguet – The municipal government announced that there are no longer persons under investigation (PUIs) in the municipality after the nine individuals who were categorized by health authorities to be PUIs completed their required 14-day home quarantine.
However, Mayor Frenzel Ayong reported there are still 76 individuals who are considered to be persons under monitoring (PUMs) being closely monitored by the personnel of the municipal health office and concerned barangay officials and barangay health workers as they are still on the process of completing their prescribed 14-day home quarantine pursuant to established policies crafted for the purpose.
He added the municipal government is continually monitoring people going in and out of the barangays to ensure their health condition is properly checked so as not to derail the gains of the locality in terms of making sure there are no Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) cases in the town even beyond the lapse of the extended Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine by the end of April.
“We are grateful to our health workers for sacrificing their time, effort and resources in closely monitoring our identified PUIs and PUMs. We also commend our constituents who were identified as PUIs and PUMs for their cooperation to the policy of undergoing the prescribed home quarantine before they are allowed to freely roam around. We also congratulate the families and relatives of the PUIs and PUMs for understanding the situation because we need their participation to effectively and efficiently combat the prevailing global pandemic,” Mayor Ayong stressed.
The municipal chief executive clarified that the only lockdown implemented in the municipality is the two-day experimental lockdown last March 23-24, 2020, and there were no other days that the municipality was placed under total lockdown.
Ayong explained that Barangay Balili has not been locked down contrary to what has been circulated at the La Trinidad Vegetable Trading Post as the municipal government knows the upland barangay is a vegetable-producing area where farmers have to transport their vegetable produce to the trading centers to ensure the steady supply of quality highland vegetables for the market.
According to him, municipal officials and health authorities have repeatedly advised farmers who transport their vegetable produce to the different trading centers to undertake practical measures that will allow them to be quarantined before joining their families as a preventive measure in fighting the possible entry of the deadly virus in the municipality.
He appealed to the residents of the different barangays to be patient in complying with the stringent policies being imposed by the concerned government agencies and the municipal government on the prevailing enhanced community quarantine so that the locality will maintain its COVID-19 free status up to the end of the same and beyond considering that the battle against COVID-19 will remain even when the new normal way of living will gradually be brought back.
By HENT
