Lawyers ask court to declare IATF COVID-19 protocol inapplicable in Cebu

Two Cebu-based lawyers on Monday urged a trial court to declare the national government’s testing and quarantine protocols for international travelers inapplicable in their province.

Petitioners Clarence Paul Oaminal and Valentino Bacalso Jr. filed a petition for declaratory relief amid differences between the protocols set by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the Cebu provincial government.

They asked the Cebu City Regional Trial Court to issue an order that would stop the implementation of IATF Resolution 114 issued in May. The petition named IATF chairperson and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III a respondent.

Cebu's provincial ordinance on testing and quarantine protocols calls for returning overseas Filipinos and OFWs to go through swab testing for COVID-19 upon arrival at the airport. Following a negative test result, the traveler would be allowed to go into home quarantine.

Under the IATF-approved protocols, these individuals must undergo a facility-based quarantine. They are given an RT-PCR test on the seventh day of quarantine.

“The assumption used in the IATF Resolution 114 is quite disturbing where for purposes of enforcing its protocols on swabbing on the seventh day and hotel quarantine until the 10th day, respondent IATF sets and counts as the Day 1 the very date of arrival of an OFW or ROF,” the petition read.

“For how can one believe it as close to being believable where respondent IATF impliedly assumes all passengers in one inbound flight to have originated from the same place with exactly similar climate and conditions and all of them behaving in wondrous synchrony prior to their travel to the Philippines?”

The petition said the Cebu governor and the Sangguniang Panlalawigan have the inherent authority to respond to and protect the people of Cebu from a public health emergency.

It also said the IATF failed to properly consult the local authorities.

“Thus, IATF Resolution 114 is unenforceable and inapplicable in Cebu because the [IATF] has issued it not in consultation with, but in contravention of, the subsisting local laws and regulations issued by the local authorities,” the petition stated.

Earlier in the day, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire spoke against “non-uniformity in the implementation of border control.”

“We are going to uphold the directive of the IATF as well as the Office of the President. This is because we want to prevent further entry of this Delta variant,” Vergeire said, referring to the highly contagious coronavirus variant that was first detected in India.

International flights bound for Cebu were diverted to Manila from May 29 to June 12 in light of the implementation of the provincial protocol.

Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia told a Senate inquiry last week that she would ask the Sangguniang Panlalawigan to revisit the ordinance even as she stood by the policy.

“I cannot unilaterally set aside the implementation of an ordinance lest I be accused of dereliction of duty,” she said on June 16.

She also invited the technical advisers and medical experts of the IATF to visit Cebu and present their data that would support the government’s stand. — DVM, GMA News