The city government of Dumaguete will be strictly enforcing ordinances and other measures this year as it consolidates its forces assigned with the Task Force SAGARR (Special Action Group Advocating Rapid Reform) and the Market Task Force into one “super body”.
City Administrator William Ablong disclosed Thursday in a phone interview that Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria has ordered to strengthen the functions of Task Force SAGARR to fully enforce and implement all existing ordinances of the city.
Ablong explained that last Jan. 2, the Market Task Force has been dissolved and its personnel absorbed by Task Force SAGARR to avoid duplicity of functions considering that the latter’s mandate involves the implementation and enforcement of all ordinances, including those that involve the public market.
With the consolidation of forces, Ablong still continues to be the Task Force SAGARR ground commander while Harrison Gonzales, former Tinago village chief and then Market Task Force head, has been named deputy ground commander.
Gonzales will be at the frontline of the Task Force SAGARR’s operations and will be out in the field at all times to lead a total of 31 frontliners, Ablong said.
They will be divided in three shifts, namely, from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m. with 12 personnel, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with also 12 employees, and from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. with seven frontliners, according to Ablong.
The task force shall also be deployed during calamities and disasters as reinforcement and provide support to the city’s Rescue 348 and law enforcers, the city administrator said.
Ablong said that with the new structure of Task Force SAGARR, the city can now concentrate on the stringent enforcement of ordinances such as those on mendicancy, vagrancy, spitting, urinating and defecating in public, the selling of liquor to minors, ambulant vendors, curfew for minors, the market and slaughterhouse code and most especially the ordinance prohibiting smoking in public places. (PNA/JFP)
