By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson called on local government units (LGUs) and all Negrenses to be ready for the return of more locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and returning OFWs (ROFs).

“We have been given a moratorium which ends on August 22. Expect the arrival of LSI, etc.,” Lacson said.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana had earlier ordered a moratorium on the repatriation of LSIs to enable local governments to declog their quarantine facilities.

Gerhart Caelian, head of the Provincial Disaster Management Program Division, said the provincial government is preparing for the resumption of the arrivals of the LSIs.

He said quarantine facilities of the provincial government were declogged during the moratorium on LSI arrivals.

The halt in the return of LSIs has enabled them to accommodate local individuals identified during contact tracing in the quarantine facilities, he pointed out.

The moratorium was proposed after a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in the LGUs, following the arrival of returning residents and also due to the limited resources and capacity of LGUs to quarantine them.

Meanwhile, Caelian said 13 first responders of the provincial government have tested negative for Covid-19 after undergoing real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests./DGB, WDJ