By Jennifer P. Rendon
After San Joaquin and Lemery municipal police stations in Iloilo, the Miag-ao PNP station was also placed under “quarantine.”
Colonel Gilbert Gorero, Iloilo police chief, said they decided to place the local police force under quarantine after 10 police officers tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
The infection is believed to have stemmed from three detainees who were turned over to the disposition of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).
Aside from the commitment order, the detainee must also undergo a Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). When the result came out, one detainee was positive for the virus.
The team of five policemen who came in close contact with the detainee was made to undergo RT-PCR test. One of them tested positive.
“That’s why, it was recommended that all other policemen will also be swabbed,” Gorero said.
Nine more policemen turned out to have contracted the virus, including the station’s officer-in-charge.
Even the officers who tested negative were isolated.
Gorero said they already sent a team from the 1st Iloilo Provincial Mobile Force Company to take over the operational duties of the “isolated” cops, who will still perform administrative functions while in isolation.
It was gathered that Brigadier General Rolando Miranda, Western Visayas police chief, has given PHP5,000 monetary assistance to each policeman who contracted the virus.
In August 2020, the Miag-ao Police Station was also “locked down” for two weeks after one of its uniformed personnel tested positive for Covid-19.
On Saturday, Mayor Macario Napulan confirmed that Miag-ao recorded 22 more persons who tested positive for Covid-19.
This include the nine policemen, five personnel of the Sangguniang Bayan Office, the wife of an SB member, a worker of the municipal tourism office, a worker of the Mayor’s office, and five close contacts of those who were earlier tested for Covid-19.
Napulan had met with the representatives from the municipal Covid-19 Task Force and mulled closing the town hall for two days for disinfection.
