By Nora Soriño
Iligan City Bureau Chief
and Ric Palahang
Correspondent

ILIGAN City ― The city has now identified some 600 contact tracers.

José Pantoja, city information officer yesterday said these tracers comprise of members of the Philippines National Police, the Bureau of Fire Protection, Philippine Army including reservists, members of the city’s Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office, and purok presidents.

These personnel are going to undergo a two-day training, Pantoja added.

Asked about the pay of the tracers, Pantoja said “that is not a problem since these people have already their existing salaries” even as he added that purok presidents have to do their tracing on their respective barangays only.

To note the city has been denied its request to have the city be placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine again which was supposed to start on August 17, following the city leadership under Mayor Celso G. Regencia that it has reached a “dangerous” level of Covid-19 positives with 26 of its 44 barangays having registered positives.

However, the National Inter-Agency Task Force has denied the request.

Carlito Galvez, the chief implementer of the National Action Plan vs Covid-19, said that the city’s request has been denied on grounds that the city “does not have enough funds to support such situation” even as its capacity for contact tracing leaves much to be desired. He also denied that the decision was influenced by Rep. Frederick Siao.

The city is still on Modified General Community Quarantine. It was learned that at present the city has 170 Covid-19 positive, most of them locally transmitted.

It was also learned that Cagayan de Oro City has offered “to help Iligan City.”

Pantoja said that it has been agreed in principle that Cagayan de Oro will take care of this city’s returning residents and overseas workers so they will all be provided with hotel accommodations in the city upon landing in the airport at Laguindingan.

As to who will pay for the hotels there or similar facilities, has yet to be ironed out, he added.