- MITCH M. LIPA
The Bacolod Emergency Operations Center has sought the intervention of the Department of the Interior and Local Government regional office on the S-PaSS issue.
EOC executive director Em Ang said they have written to the DILG 6 last weekend, and that the regional director may call a meeting with the regional Inter-Agency Task Force to tackle the matter.
Ang said the EOC has been receiving complaints from Bacolod passengers that they are still being required to present their S-PaSS registration by airlines at the Manila airport, as ordered by the provincial government of Negros Occidental.
This despite an executive order (EO) from Mayor Evelio Leonardia that S-PaSS will no longer be required for travellers bound for Bacolod since the city is under Alert Level 2 until Nov. 30.
Ang added that the sole requirement of presenting a vaccination card, instead of S-PaSS, is part of the incentives given to fully vaccinated passengers, and so as not to further inconvenience them.
Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson, meanwhile, issued an EO ahead of Leonardia’s order, and this requires an S-PaSS from all travellers to the province, including at the Bacolod-Silay Airport that is under the jurisdiction of Capitol since it is located in Silay, one of its component cities.
Ang said the EOC wants the DILG intervention on what EO to follow, and to sit down with officials of Bacolod and Negros Occidental, as well as the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, to discuss the issue.
Negros Occidental Provincial Administrator, Atty. Rayfrando Diaz, said Monday that the EO of the province is harmonized with the national IATF guidelines, adding that the use of the S-PaSS has not been lifted yet by the IATF, and that the Alert Level System on COVID restrictions is temporary.
Diaz added that the policy is for everyone’s safety and travellers have already been used to this system.
He said the province included the S-PaSS requirement as one condition when it allowed airline companies to have one trip per day each. Travellers upload their full vaccination card and indicate their places of destination in the S-PaSS registration, and the province said this will be useful for recording and contact tracing purposes. — MML
