Nineteen departments and offices of the Silay City government will be on temporary lockdown, from May 24 to 28, for disinfection, to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 infection.
Mayor Mark Golez, in Special Executive Order No. 2021-05-07, series of 2021, said the offices under zoning containment or temporary lockdown, include the City Legal, Assessor’s, Bids and Awards Committee, Accounting, Internal Audit, City Budget, City Nutrition, Community Affairs, Persons with Disabilities Affairs, Pantawid, City Treasurer’s, Business Permits and Licensing, City Environment and Natural Resources, Housing, Public Employment Service, Information Technology, Human Resource and Management, Office of the Register of Deeds, and Commission on Audit Silay satellite office.
During the containment period, the City Health Office and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office personnel shall conduct an extensive contact tracing and disinfecting measures, Golez said.
Officials and employees of affected offices are required to undergo strict home quarantine. The heads of offices concerned should maintain a skeletal workforce to facilitate urgent and critical transactions and to ensure the unhampered delivery of public service, the order added.
Only city government employees, including job order personnel, who will form part of the skeletal workforce will be allowed entry to the affected offices, Golez said.
The temporary lockdown will be for purposes of disinfection, sanitation and decontamination to prevent the further spread of COVID, he said, adding that from April 15 to May 19, there were 10 identified COVID patients in the Silay City Hall building and compound.
The order added that employees who have COVID symptoms, or whose immediate family member/s in the same household had been identified by the Silay COVID-19 Task Force as probable, suspected, or confirmed cases, are ordered to work from home.
“Tighter health and community quarantine protocols must be kept high at all costs with or without COVID case involvement among offices and employees,” Golez said.
The other offices, departments, and divisions of the city government not included in the lockdown do not have any recent or existing cases, and as such, shall maintain their regular day-to-day operations to cater to the transacting public and ensure the continuity of the delivery of basic essential services, and shall strictly observe health and community quarantine protocols at all times.
Golez’s order was pursuant to Memorandum Circular No. 2, series of 2020, dated June 15, 2020, of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease and National Task Force Against Covid-19.
The memorandum allows local chief executives to apply zoning containment strategies in areas needing prompt intervention and response to curb the COVID transmission.-CGC
