Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 21) – Two lawyers filed on Monday a case for declaratory relief against the country’s pandemic task force regarding Cebu’s protocols for arriving Filipinos, seeking to make a particular resolution “inapplicable and ineffective” within the province.
Petitioners Attys. Clarence Paul Oaminal and Valentino Bacalso want Resolution No. 114 of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases declared as “inapplicable and ineffective” in Cebu.
The lawyers stressed its conflict with “Cebu Provincial Ordinance No. 2021-04 as amended and Executive Order No. 17 validly enacted pursuant to Sections 105 and 16 of Republic Act No. 7160.”
Under the resolution, the IATF requires returning Filipinos to stay in an accredited quarantine facility for ten days and undergo RT-PCR testing seven days after their return.
Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia’s EO, meanwhile, allows arriving nationals to be swabbed upon their arrival and return to their homes after a negative RT-PCR test result. They will be allowed to finish their mandatory quarantine in their homes under the supervision of barangay health workers, then take another RT-PCR test on the seventh day.
The EO, which was issued in March, was later adopted into the provincial ordinance.
The lawyers argued that the IATF resolution “cannot supplant” both the ordinance and its amendatory ordinance “for only the Courts can declare these ordinances invalid or the Sangguniang Panlalawigan abrogates or repeals it.”
The case filed also shares the governor’s view that the IATF needs concurrence from the local government units if it continues to impose health policies on a locality beyond 6 months during the pandemic, in line with Section 105 of the Local Government Code.
The petitioners also eye the issuance of a temporary restraining order good for 72 hours, mandating the IATF to cease and desist from implementing its protocols on arriving Filipinos, and a 20-day TRO along with “subsequently a preliminary injunction to be effective during the entire pendency of this suit” after separate summary hearings.
Last week, President Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered Cebu to follow IATF protocols for returning overseas Filipinos.
CNN Philippines’ Cebu-based correspondent Dale Israel contributed to this report.
