Malacañang on Thursday urged Congress to file a quarantine law that would set stiffer penalties for those who would breach quarantine protocols, after President Rodrigo Duterte expressed dismay over mounting reports of these violations.
In his public address Wednesday night, Duterte said he was looking for a suitable law to jail quarantine violators, after observing that many Filipinos continue to disregard the government’s call to follow health protocols to prevent the spread of COVID 19.
Presidential chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo said that without such a law, reckless imprudence is the possible complaint that can be filed against any violators.
But presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the penalty under reckless
imprudence would not be “stiff enough to serve as an example to others, to comply with quarantine regulations.”
“There should be a higher penalty to be imposed on individuals who will be responsible for super spreader events because as you know, the case for reckless imprudence, there’s hardly any imprisonment. And it is subject to settlement,” Roque said in an interview on the ABS-CBN News Channel.
“I would prefer to see Congress specifically enact a national quarantine law, similar to what other countries have that would spell out stiffer penalties for those in breach of quarantine protocols."
“There are existing laws which you can apply for now but I want more effective laws that would provide for more stringent penalties so there would be more compliance for quarantine classifications,” Roque added.
In his address, Duterte said people who violated quarantine restrictions were breaking the law.
“You are disregarding the government ‘s appeal and it’s criminal for you to get the COVID and pass it on to another innocent person. It is really a crime,” Duterte said.
“I will look for a suitable law because you are now forcing my hand to get into this thing and control. Much as we would like to reduce the COVID cases, if this is what you’ll do, there will be no end to this,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.
“There’s no end to this perdition. We don’t have enough money,“he added.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, meanwhile, said chiefs of large villages cannot use the size of their area of jurisdiction as an excuse for their inability to monitor and prevent super spreader events.
In an interview with ABS-CBN Teleradyo, Año said they should strengthen coordination with the local police, the city or municipal government, and other stakeholders to be able to strictly enforce health protocols.
Also on Thursday, the Clark Development Corp. said with new and stricter guidelines in place, appropriate penalties will now be imposed on violators of health and safety protocols in the freeport. As it prepares to reopen the public areas of the free port, the state-owned corporation said that it opted to formulate new policies to effectively implement the health and safety protocols of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) in the zone.
