Decisiveness and discipline without favor.
This is no secret and Lila Mayor Atty. Arturo Piollo II shared this in making his town survive in this COVID-19 pandemic.
d aired over national television networks, Piollo thinks this is just like any local chief executive’s approach given the natural responsibility in time of this coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
Lila health authorities noticed an unusual spike in the local COVID-19 cases in late April and immediately, with the Rural Heath Unit and the contact tracing teams in town, the mayor issued Executive Order No. 8 series of 2021 implementing manned localized and strategic granular lockdowns with corresponding quarantine buffer zones in specific quarantine measures.
The mayor, in consultation with his health workers noted that the surge of COVID-19 cases was clustered in one locality, leading to a local spike of 31 local transmission cases.
“To contain the further spread of the disease, detect its extent, and treat the infected individuals, it is imperative to order the temporary lockdown of certain areas in the town with zoning containment provisions in line with the guidelines of the national Task Force against COVID-19,” the mayor wrote in his executive order.
In a week’s time, Lila drastically reduced its infection to less than 10. “What we did is what every Local Chief Executive would do in protecting his people, by following the protocols set up by the IATF," Piollo told PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar in his radio program.
Despite this major victory, the mayor says he sees nothing spectacular with what he did. Being results-oriented, the mayor made the call to be decisive and to be effective in implementing the IATF protocols without any reservations, and the local authorities saw it worked.
“All we need is strict implementation and that is what we did. Decisiveness and immediate action,” he said.
A long-term solution for fighting the pandemic, however, is gaining herd immunity through vaccination.
Leading a small coastal town in southern Bohol, Piollo admitted there are still people in his town who are hesitant to take the vaccines for personal or religious beliefs. But, the local government unit did not stop.
“What we did is do more intensive information drives. If we know of people who hesitate (to get the vaccines), I asked the nurses deployed for the Nurses Deployment Program of the Department of Health to visit (these people) on house-to-house basis and convince them," said Piollo.
Heading a relatively small town where almost everyone knows the mayor, he used it to the town’s advantage. “In the town’s upland barangays, I personally go to convince the frontliners, barangay officials, and elderly (who are in the present prioritization list). I’ve been doing this on a personal basis, considering that Lila is not that big a town,” he confessed.
With this, Lila has achieved a 92 percent accomplishment in its vaccine rollout for its frontline healthcare workers, senior citizens, and individuals with comorbidities, the mayor reported. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
CRITICAL TIME. Lila set up control points and contained a target area where the local transmission has been noted and prevented the spread of the virus. (PIA Bohol/LILA MPS)
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