By Nora Soriño
Iligan City Bureau Chief
ILIGAN City ― In a rare briefing heard on-air yesterday on stations even including those which the city government seldom use as outlets, city mayor Celso G. Regencia stated among other things that the curfew is now from 9:00 pm to 4:00 am.
This is per Executive Order 192, Series of 2021 which he had duly signed and to take effect Aug. 10 at 12:01 am.
Also included among the matters included in said EO is the sale of liquor which is now “banned” and that amusement parts like the Wet Park and the Esplanade, public amusement parks, and the like are similarly closed to the public.
Public gatherings are also limited to certain percentages.
“This is because ‘an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,’ “ the mayor said adding that the threat of the delta variant is real. So, the public must act with much restraint even if the city is still under Modified General Community Quarantine.
Reactions on the said EO on the public were mixed. Some were in favor while others were not.
Lawyer Leo Zaragoza, a member of the Iligan Hotel, and Resorts, Restaurants Association asked by media yesterday on the matter said that he doubts “if the EO has been studied by the city legal office even as I am wondering whether there is a city legal officer at all.” To note, Atty. Voltaire Rovira who had held such a position died late last year.
He said the documents like EOs should be initialed by the legal department.
“Executive Orders should be in consonance with guidelines on the National IATF,” he said.
He added that among the concerns the city must attend to is the Covid laboratory at this point in time.
“How can we immediately know how many positive Covid-19 people are just going around? Simply because we don’t have that laboratory and we are dependent on other areas here who had long come up with their own laboratories,” he said.
