Flag carrier Philippine Airlines in an advisory is now requiring Bacolod residents to declare that they are Barangay Airport, Silay City, residents when applying for an S-PaSS, Executive Director Em Legaspi Ang of the Bacolod Emergency Operations Center-Task Force, said Wednesday, November 24.
“Rather than ridding some of the inconvenience, they are instructing Bacolod residents to mis-declare personal information in an official government platform,” she said on her Facebook page.
She said it is tantamount to instructing inbound travelers to lie by supplying fake or false information.
Sadly, it leaves a bad taste on the mouth, Ang said.
“According to (Negros Occidental) Provincial Administrator Ray Diaz, SPaSS is used as a ‘primary contact tracing system’. How is this new policy going to help if people fill in a fake address?” she asked.
A copy of an S-PaSS furnished by Diaz of an inbound Bacolod passenger, whom he said submitted a fake vaccination card on Tuesday, asks for one’s place of destination, and destination barangay.
The passenger listed Silay City as her place of destination and destination barangay as Celine Homes Subdivision.
“The passengers are required to state their correct address, we are not falsifying anything, since Bacolod has abandoned all intentions of screening passengers. How can they contact trace without the S-PaSS”, Diaz asked.
He said the S-PaSS is necessary to authenticate inbound passengers’ vaccination cards for the fully vaccinated and negative RT-PCR test results for the unvaccinated prior to arrival to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among the plane passengers and on their arrival.
Fully-vaccinated travelers to Bacolod are only required to show their vaccination cards, Ang said.
“If we can give them comfort and hassle-free policy, why not? After all, Bacolod’s status is Alert Level 2,” Ang said.*