Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson announced today, February 17, that Negros Occidental will ease its border control between Kabankalan City and Mabinay town in Negros Oriental starting March 1.
“We will allow Mabinay residents to enter up to Kabankalan only for a maximum of 12 hours for that day,” he said.
They can only enter using private vehicles, he also said.
The Mabinay residents will be allowed into Kabankalan for commerce and medical needs. This is because Kabankalan is much closer to Mabinay than Bais and Dumaguete cities in the Oriental side, Lacson said.
Lacson said he does not think the Mabinay residents will travel beyond Kabankalan because their local government will quarantine them on their return if they are gone beyond 24 hours.
“I don’t think anybody would want to go all the way to Bacolod only to be quarantined on their return to Mabinay,” he said.
Lacson earlier issued an executive order closing the borders between Negros Occidental and Oriental as a deterrent against the spread of COVID-19.
However, the governor admitted that San Carlos City has long opened its borders to residents of Vallehermoso in the Oriental side.
Lacson said he will talk to the mayor of San Carlos to ask him if he will agree to a similar arrangement to the one between Mabinay and Kabankalan.
The governor today also reiterated that the provincial government will not push through with the filing of a case against a Pontevedra couple who arrived from the United Kingdom but listed themselves as locally stranded individuals, because of the apology they made.
What happened to the Pontevedra couple is enough warning to others entering Negros Occidental against misdeclarations in their documents, he said.
“I don’t think they have an excuse to repeat an incident like this,” he said.*