Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said today, February 16, that no charges will be filed against a Pontevedra couple and their child who misdeclared that they were Locally Stranded Individuals instead of Returning Overseas Filipinos in their documents on their return to Negros Occidental.
The three had returned from the United Kingdom, and the couple tested positive for COVID-19 on their return to Pontevedra last month raising concern that they could have the highly contagious UK variant.
Their quarantine period has ended and the Philippine Genome Center has not informed the provincial government whether samples taken from them showed that they were hit by the UK COVID -19 variant.
The Negros Occidental provincial government was considering filing raps against the couple for falsification of public documents for not declaring that they had come from abroad.
Lacson said the provincial government is not pursuing charges against the Pontevedra couple who wrote a letter to him asking for forgiveness.
“It was a handwritten apology letter and I felt the sincerity,” he said.*