Checkpoint, triage personnel asked to heighten Guard vs Fake travel documents

6 August 2021 – Mayor Benjamin Magalong asked personnel manning checkpoints and triages in the city to be keen in their scrutiny of travel documents of people arriving in the city to prevent people with fake documents from gaining entry.

“Our personnel in the checkpoints and triage need to be very discerning and should be capable of verifying the documents of the travelers,” he told the Management Committee meeting on Aug. 3.

The mayor earlier ordered stricter monitoring of all entrances to the city in view of reports that some residents in areas placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) status were planning to enter Baguio to the extent of using fabricated travel documents to skirt the city’s entry requirements.

He also sought strict scrutiny of travel documents including vaccination cards, identification cards, travel orders and others.

Days before the declaration of ECQ over areas with high Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases including Metro Manila, the mayor anticipated the possibility that ECQ people will seek refuge in the city and preempted it by banning non-essential travels to the city from areas regardless of quarantine status.

He said the city needs to implement stricter border control to mitigate the risk of the Delta variant.

“We are just being proactive. We recognize that people tend to move to areas with lower classification in anticipation of stricter lockdown protocols,” he said.

“We wanted to preempt the influx of people into the City. By doing so, we can delay the spread of Delta in our city. We cannot prevent it, we can just delay it.” – Aileen P. Refuerzo