BOAC, Marinduque — League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) president and Marinduque governor Presbitero Velasco, Jr. clarifies that provinces still have jurisdiction on whether they impose testing requirements for interzonal travellers, after the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases published Resolution 124-B that states COVID testing is not required for fully vaccinated individuals.
On a local news program that aired on July 8, Governor Velasco said that the IATF Resolution 124-B does not nullify the importance of testing requirements, but instead states that vaccination cards or certificates of quarantine completion can serve as sufficient alternatives to it.
“I carefully studied the resolution, and written on Paragraph D, it states that vaccination cards issued by accredited establishments or the certificate of quarantine completion from Bureau of Quarantine, ‘can be’ sufficient alternatives to testing,” he said.
“It seems that the purveyors of this information do not fully discern and understand what exactly is written in the resolution,” the governor added.
Velaso further referred to IATF Resolution 101 that emphasizes the role of local government units (LGU) in allowing vaccination cards as replacement for COVID testing.
“It is on IATF Resolution 101 paragraph B, that testing is not mandatory unless imposed by the LGU. Thus, this is the same in the matter of vaccination cards being a replacement for testing before entry to a province. The LGU can still impose testing,” he stated. — Marinduquenews.com