Solon asks Duterte to extend P6k financial aid to Cagayan de Oro families amid ECQ

With Cagayan de Oro City under the strictest measure, enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), Deputy Speaker and Cagayan de Oro City Representative Rufus Rodriguez on Friday asked President Rodrigo Duterte to extend financial assistance to affected families.

“Now under ECQ, people are required to stay home, will not be able to work and they will not have income to purchase food and other basic necessities for their families for the next two weeks from July 16 to July 31,” Rodriguez said in a letter to Duterte.

“In view of the same, may I request for cash assistance of P6,000 for each family in Cagayan de Oro since it is already under ECQ,” he wrote.

Cagayan de Oro City was placed under ECQ, along with Iloilo province and the cities of Iloilo and Gingoog to curb the spread of COVID-19, Malacañang announced Friday. These areas will be under the strictest movement restrictions until July 31.

Eleven local Delta variant cases were detected in the country, according to Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.

Five of these were from Cagayan de Oro, while the others were located in Manila (two cases), Misamis Oriental (one case), Antique (two cases), and Pampanga (one case).

Rodriguez cited the Bayanihan to Heal as One Law or Republic Act No. 11469 which mandated financial assistance to poor households for two months last year. He said those in Cagayan de Oro “received only the first tranche of P6,000 because the city was not declared under ECQ but only under GCQ (general community quarantine).”

On Friday he also urged the Inter-Agency Task Force to send a team of medical experts to the city to prevent the spread of the more infectious Delta variant in the area. 

Rodriguez said he also requested Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to send more COVID-19 vaccines to Cagayan de Oro City. —KG, GMA News