A total of 25 medical personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were sent to Davao City following the reversion of the city to general community quarantine (GCQ) due to increasing COVID-19 cases.
Each team composed of a doctor, two nurses, and two corpsmen from the AFP Health Service Command, Philippine Army, Philippine Navy, and Philippine Airforce.
“Malaking tulong sila sa mga medical personnel especially ngayon diyan sa Davao… Malaki ang nagagampanan ng ating deployment. Naipapakita natin na tumutulong ang ating national government sa local efforts ng ating mga kababayan (They will be of great help to medical personnel, especially in Davao… Our deployment plays a big role. This shows that the national government is helping in the local efforts of our citizens),” AFP Deputy Chief of Staff for Civil Military Operations MGen. Benedict Arevalo stated.
A send-off ceremony for the military health personnel at Villamor Airbase in Pasay City was conducted on Monday morning before heading to Davao. This was attended by National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr..
“Nilagay natin sa GCQ kasi gusto nating ma-contain natin. Nakita naman natin na halos lahat ng cities na tumaas sa MGCQ ay ginawan nating GCQ (We placed it under GCQ because we want to contain [ the transmission]. We saw that almost all cities with a spike of cases under MGCQ were reverted to GCQ),” Galvez explained.
“Nakita natin tumataas din ang Baguio City. Nakita natin tumataas din ang sa Northern Mindanao at Bukidnon. Pinuntahan din natin. Hopefully, full force ang ating pagtulong (We saw an increase in Baguio City. We also observed this in Northern Mindanao and Bukidnon. We went there. Hopefully our assistance will be in full force),” he added. – Report from Patrick de Jesus
