Solon: Gov't must extend enhanced community quarantine for a month

A House lawmaker said Wednesday that the government should extend the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) against the spread of COVID-19 for another 30 days over Luzon, considering the number of individuals getting infected day by day.

In a statement, Caloocan City Representative Edgar Erice said science and commonsense (based on the experiences of other countries) should prompt the national government to extend the ECQ.

He pointed out that the gains of the ongoing 30-day ECQ, which began on March 17 and is expected to end on April 13, will be useless if the government will not push for an extension.

Worse, the lifting of the ECQ may even result in the resurgence of COVID-19 cases in heavily affected areas, he added.

“I have been to more [than] hundred villages in my city the past two weeks and I am afraid that if COVID-19 reaches these areas all hell will break loose,” Erice said.

Likewise, he said the government should mobilize all its resources to ensure that poor and lower-middle-class families will have adequate food supply amid the ECQ.

Meanwhile, the local government should reallocate their funds for community development and special activities to food and medical supply and acquire all the necessary facilities when worse comes to worse, he added.

“These are the least we can do to protect our citizenry as we are in a war against a very  invisible powerful enemy," Erice said.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, however, said that extending the ECQ is not advisable as this would adversely affect the country's economy.

"'Yung lockdown, hindi advisable na pahabain 'yung lockdown kasi magsa-suffer ng husto 'yung ating economy," Año said in an interview on Dobol B sa News TV on Monday.

"Talagang itong dalawang natitirang linggo na 'to ay seryosohin natin 'to. I tell you maso-solve natin ito, wala lang mga pasaway," he added.

As of Wednesday morning, there are a total of 2,084 cases of COVID-19 in the country, with 88 deaths, and 49 recoveries, according to the Department of Health. —Erwin Colcol/LBG, GMA News