Mayor Marop Ampatuan of Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao. (Photo courtesy of Shariff Aguak MIO)
COTABATO CITY – Mayor Marop Ampatuan of Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao warned vendors on Wednesday to stay clear of the venues of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) payout in the municipality for the next few days, lest they face penalties that would include short jail time.
“You will be charged for violation of basic health protocols implemented under our existing modified general community quarantine status,” Ampatuan said in the vernacular during an interview by reporters covering the 4Ps activity in the municipality.
Some 5,000 poor families in the town’s 13 villages are set to receive their 4Ps benefits from July 29 to Aug. 2 at the municipal gymnasium.
“There are proper areas to sell your goods like the town market, and let us stick to that for now,” the mayor said.
He said minimum health protocols like wearing face masks, washing hands with soap and water, and safe physical distancing would be strictly observed during the entire duration of the payout activity.
“Military, police, and health front-liners would be at the venue to ensure that proper health protocols are observed,” Ampatuan said.
Before the coronavirus diseases 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, the national highway in the town, particularly in the town proper, teem with vendors during “tiangge” (market day) scheduled on Tuesdays.
“That is not the case right now because we have a virus lurking around,” the mayor said.
Being the province’s capital town, Shariff Aguak is the site of Maguindanao’s old capitol compound.
On Monday, Governor Bai Mariam Sangki-Mangudadatu led the launching and conversion of the old three-story capitol building inside the compound into a 200-bed Covid-19 isolation facility for the homecoming of locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs).
Construction works are also underway at the abandoned old provincial jail facility in the compound that is also being transformed into an isolation center to accommodate an additional 200 LSIs and ROFs.
The converted old capitol building in Shariff Aguak is the third huge Covid-19 facility in the province. The two others are at the Maguindanao Provincial Hospital in Datu Hoffer town, and the Covid-19 center at the Cotabato Sanitarium Hospital in Sultan Kudarat town. (PNA)
