Talisay vice mayor to face sanctions if residents allowed to violate lockdown —DILG

Vice Mayor Charlie Natanauan of Talisay, Batangas will only face administrative sanctions if his constituents would be allowed to enter their town despite the lockdown imposed due to imminent eruption of Taal Volcano.

Natanauan earlier this week questioned the warnings made by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology against residents returning to areas that have been tagged as danger zones under Alert Level 4.

"As of the moment it's also his opinion. He has freedom of speech, he can say whatever he wants," Interior Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III said in an interview on ANC.

"At the end of the day, it's the actions that we will consider. If he starts letting people go back to Talisay, including himself, then that's when we'll put in the potential administrative sanction," he added.

Natanauan in an interview insisted that his constituents should not be kept far from their homes and livelihood.

"Siya ba ay Diyos?" Natanauan said, referring to Solidum.

Densing said the DILG would let the comment slide as long as it did not translate to the actual return of the residents to the danger zone—the areas within the 14-kilometer radius from Taal Volcano's main crater.

"These are just verbal opinions of the vice mayor. We'll let him be. He may be just steaming out whatever he's feeling right now or the pressures of him not going back to his municipality together with his constituency," he added.

Moreover, Densing said that an effective communication with the evacuees would be crucial at this point to make them better understand the situation.

"We have to communicate efficiently, effectively, and correctly to the people because many of them always have thoughts that because of their previous experience in the past years or decades that there are no death experiences whenever Taal Volcano erupts," Densing said.

"This time around we have to tell them the impact of a Level 5 explosion of a volcano," he added.

Plans on distributing educational materials and visual aids to the residents in evacuation centers are in the pipeline, according to Densing. —NB, GMA News