Mayor Isko Moreno today ordered the Manila Police District to arrest stubborn (“pasaway“) constituents who will be caught drinking roadside, as the capital city heads back into the stricter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) starting tomorrow.
MECQ protocol prohibits residents from leaving the house unless for the purposes of essential work and vital errands such as buying food and medicine.
Moreno, in a statement released by his public information office, asked the city’s police officers to “handcuff on the spot” boozy violators. The mayor said that prior to the city being placed under stricter lockdown, unnamed residents have already complained of seeing a number of drunkards outside their homes.
Read: Mayor Isko Moreno blames ‘lack of space’ in Manila for rise in quarantine violators
The mayor stressed that his local government will be strictly enforcing the two-week MECQ that President Rodrigo Duterte ordered to reimpose in Metro Manila and four other areas to address the surge in coronavirus cases.
On a bizarre random note, Moreno added that he is prohibiting “gossiping among offices and community to prevent the possible transmission of COVID-19,” through saliva and droplets.
Read: Ear to the Ground: Gossip to be used in COVID-19 contact tracing in Central Visayas
Meanwhile, Moreno claimed that the city’s COVID-19 infection rate has slowed down to 78% from a rate of 90%, though he did not specify which months these infection rates were recorded.
Nationwide, the country now has 106,330 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 2,104 deaths and 65,821 recoveries.
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