Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso ordered a 24-hour shutdown of Barangay 20 in Tondo after residents held boxing and bingo games amid the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.
Manila Public Information Office (MPIO) said Mayor Isko decided to create the Executive Order No. 19 after he learned that residents of Barangay 20 in Parola Compound, Tondo engaged in leisure activities such as boxing and bingo.
The Executive Order will put the barangay under 24-hour shutdown, from 8 p.m. of April 14 to 8 p.m. of April 15.
The residents, as seen in the Facebook video, directly violated social distancing and travel restrictions measures amid the COVID-19 ECQ. Around one hundred persons were participating in an “informally organized boxing match” along a street in Barangay 20.
“The video shows blatant violations of the enhanced community quarantine guidelines and social distancing protocols, thereby creating immense risk of exposure and contraction of COVID-19 to those involved in the event,” the executive order said.
During the shutdown, all residents of the said barangay will not be allowed to leave their homes, while control of the barangay council’s operations would be ceded to the local government unit.
“During the said shutdown period, all residents of the said barangay shall be strictly confined to their residences and are prohibited from going out of their houses,” the order stated.
Also read: 10 arrested for watching alleged cockfight in Mandaluyong
Moreno orders Tondo barangay shutdown
Moreno also ordered disease surveillance, rapid risk assessment operations, and disease surveillance during the shutdown in the area.
However, Mayor Isko also clarified that the shutdown does not cover health workers living in Barangay 20 together with the members of law enforcement agencies like the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the Philippine Coast Guard.
“All commercial, industrial, retail, institutional, and other activities in the said barangay shall be suspended within the specified period of the shutdown,” he explained.
Police officers from the Manila Police District (MPD) Station 2 have been deployed in strategic locations in the barangay to enforce the shutdown. According to Manila’s local government, Barangay 20, under Zone 2, District 1, has a population of 41,334.
As of this posting, the Philippines has 4,932 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 315 deaths and 242 recoveries.