Laguna will implement random inspection at checkpoints and ban public transport during its return to the second strictest lockdown level to arrest the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the province’s governor said Tuesday.

Authorities will only check random vehicles at checkpoints to prevent stranding essential workers in heavy traffic, said Governor Ramil Hernandez.

“Ang gusto po natin makausad ang ekonomiya, pero kung sobrang higpit ang checkpoint, mauubos lang po ang oras ng tao sa kalye,” he told ABS-CBN’s TeeRadyo. ‘

(We want the economy to move, but if the checkpoints are too tight, people will waste their time on the road.)

The provincial government will lend its vehicles to help ferry essential workers but companies should provide shuttle services while public transport is suspended, he said.

The province south of the capital has tallied 1,740 cases of COVID-19. Quarantine facilities in Laguna’s first and second districts are “loaded”, while those in the third and fourth districts are almost empty because cases there are “contained”, said the governor.

To decongest isolation facilities, residents are allowed to go on home quarantine if they have a room of their own with a separate comfort room, and if they do not live with an elderly person, pregnant women or those vulnerable to the disease, he said.

Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal and Bulacan will be under MECQ or modified enhanced community quarantine until Aug. 18.

President Rodrigo Duterte tightened these areas' lockdown on the urging of health workers who called for a "breathing space" as cases of COVID-19 breached the 100,000-mark.

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Watch Hernandez’s full interview here.

TeleRadyo, August 4, 2020