Baguio City lifts limit on number of visitors

The Baguio City government has lifted its limit on the number visitors allowed in the country's summer capital, its Mayor Benjamin Magalong said Tuesday.

In a statement, Magalong said the local government lifted the limit to determine its threshold on tourist arrivals when the city was placed under Alert Level 2 in February.

“This is already the concept of our recovery.  We will again engage with the private and business sectors for us to be able to create that enabling environment. We need to help them recover as we transition to the ‘new normal,” he said.

Baguio City is under Alert Level 1 from March 1 to 15.

According to Magalong, the local government set several parameters to establish the threshold such as  manageability of traffic, manageability of people especially in places of convergence such as markets and malls,  air quality, and crowd counting.

These can be monitored in real time by the city’s Smart City System, he added.

Magalong reminded residents and visitors to continue observing minimum public health standards like wearing face masks and practicing good physical hygiene.

He added that even if 100% capacity is already allowed in establishments under Alert Level 1, he pointed out that this will be slowly implemented in Baguio in the next few days.

On inter-regional transportation, Magalong said he already talked with the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), and the city government will have to endorse the requests of bus companies.

“We have again endorsed another bus company to open their routes to Regions 2 and 3. So tuloy-tuloy pero dahan-dahan at hindi natin pwedeng biglain lahat.  (It would continue gradually) but definitely, we are going to favorably endorse all the routes to the LTFRB,” he said. —LBG, GMA News