GUEST EDITORIAL
Lenten season came earlier for thousands of Negrenses amid the stay-at-home orders.
After the Province of Negros Oriental placed the 19 towns and six cities under an Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), public transport ceased everywhere, except Dumaguete.
The City of Dumaguete passed its own ECQ Ordinance, which is somewhat relaxed compared to the what the Province intended.
So now you continue to see tricycles roaming around to cater to the needs of those who were lucky enough to receive a Quarantine Pass from their respective barangays.
The City’s ECQ makes up for this laxity by circulating only a few Quarantine Passes. Could this have been deliberate or a result of a dysfunction in the system, or simply the lack of time to print and laminate each Pass?
But as predicted by the Mayor, there were not that many people in town needing to ride the tricycles as rightly so, most of the drivers chose to stay indoors as well.
In another development, the Provincial Legislature passed an ordinance in a special session held Friday to give teeth to the Executive Order issued by the Governor.
With that Provincial Ordinance in place, all component local government units — including the capital city of Dumaguete — are compelled to ban tricycles and other public utility vehicles from plying its streets.
There can only be one law in Negros Oriental.
Besides, Dumaguete already has one CoViD-19 positive case, involving the Bagacay resident who had a travel history to the Middle East. Must we wait for another one? And despite the negative findings from another PUM, our doctors are simply convinced that another Dumaguete resident who died having CoViD-19 symptoms, was also positive of the virus.
The least that everyone in Negros Oriental can do is to be very careful, and take the Stay-Home directive very seriously.
Now that there exists a Provincial Ordinance that the public clamored for, we just hope that every individual will abide by it.