The policies of the national government prevail over local government ordinances, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año insisted during a Senate committee hearing on COVID-19 response on Tuesday, June 15. 

“The IATF-EID (Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases) resolutions on protocols are binding and mandatory. The rules and policies of local government units are expected to conform,” Año told senators. 

He was reacting to Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia’s position that local governments have the right to enforce their own health policies. 

Garcia spoke at the committee hearing to defend the provincial government’s different quarantine policies for returning Filipinos (RFs) and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). 

An executive order by Garcia and an ordinance passed by the provincial board instruct local government personnel to require RFs and OFWs to go on hotel quarantine for a period of only two to three days, with swabbing upon arrival. (READ: Cebu Province insists on its customs protocols for arriving OFWs)

The current national policy, however, mandates a 10-day quarantine and swabbing on the seventh day from arrival.

Garcia has said that the prolonged quarantine put a financial burden on returning OFWs and RFs, and refused to implement the IATF’s quarantine policies.

This prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to order Cebu-bound international flights rerouted to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila from May 29 to June 12.

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Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said this week that Cebu must follow the national guidelines on RFs and OFWs, even after Garcia met with him last May 31 to make the case for the shorter quarantine.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the reason for this was to prevent the entry of variants of concern to the country. 

Duque said the reason for testing on the seventh day was because it takes an average of 5 to 14 days for the virus to become detectable by an RT-PCR swab test.

Garcia cited Section 105 of the Local Government Code, saying the law requires the consultation of the concerned local government unit before the health secretary could assume direct supervision and control of health operations in the local government unit (LGU).

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‘Follow command of national government’

She said the local ordinance, as a codified local law, should be followed unless a court declares it “ultra vires,” or rules that the provincial board acted beyond its authority.

Año supported Duque, who is chair of the IATF, and said the authority of the national government is supreme over local ordinances.

“Since local government units are under the executive branch, they are expected to follow the command of the national government exercised through the executive power of the chief executive,” the interior secretary said.

“Hence, no executive order or ordinance can therefore defeat the power of the President rooted [in] a constitutional precedent, considering the Constitution is the fundamental and highest law of the land,” he added.

Año also said there was no need for an ultra vires ruling, “because…the ordinance or resolution is, in the first place, opposing the resolution that has been approved by the President.”

Senators show support

Senator Richard Gordon supported Garcia’s position and said her custom quarantine and testing policy should be allowed.

“When practically everyone in the local government from the provincial board, mayor, congressmen of Cebu are saying they can do it, they will hold themselves to it,” Gordon said in Filipino. “They (the Cebu government) will be responsible because of the cultural imperative [to] their OFWs that have sacrificed abroad and only rarely come home.”

Senator Francis Pangilinan, an opposition lawmaker, also supported Garcia’s position.

Pangilinan said that, under Republic Act 11494, known as “Bayanihan II,” local governments are allowed to regulate their borders.

While the law grants power to the IATF to create policies regarding “cross border concerns,” he said, LGUs can also create policies and regulations “within their respective jurisdictions.”

“That’s precisely what the ordinance is for. It’s a policy, and an ordinance, within their jurisdiction,” Pangilinan added. 

Earlier in the hearing, Garcia presented data showing that the critical care utilization rate in Cebu was below 23% in public hospitals and 19% in private facilities to make her case that Cebu’s COVID-19 cases are under control.

She then invited Duque to present his critique of the policy to the provincial board.  Duque then told Garcia that he would furnish her office with a copy of the IATF’s critique of Cebu’s protocols and would also meet with the provincial board to explain their position.

According to the latest data from the Department of Health Central Visayas, Cebu province reported 16 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, June 14. It has 15,997 total cases, of which 473 are active. At least 14,788 have recovered and 763 have died from the virus in the province. – Rappler.com