MINDANAO DAILY TRUTH | JUSTICE | PROGRESS
Volume X, No. 148
www.mindanaodailynews.com
P15.00
Saturday, May 22, 2021
Davao’s ACF offers free rides to medical frontliners By DR. MARIGEL V.C. WAGNER
DAVAO CITY - To make the transportation of medical frontliners a bit easy, ACF owner Jerry Sy has offered his buses for free rides. This announcement was confirmed yesterday by Mr Gerardo Dela Torre, ACF operations manager. Davao
ACF operates a fleet of buses plying in the city and to any point in the Davao Region, it was learned. Gerardo said the Davao ACF offers 5 free bus rides from Digos City to Davao City. See RIDES, page 11
MAXED OUT AT CODE RED
NMMC cuts services by half to cushion COVID-19 surge In declaring a ´code red´, Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) called on the public on Friday (May 21) to help them slow down the COVID-19 surge so they and the city´s private hospitals can better handle their patients. ´With the code red we increased our operating capacity for COVID-19 cases to 50 percent from 40 percent which means half of our operations are dedicated to COVID-19 cases, including our San Simon facility. Our health care capacity is now stretched to its maximum level and there´s no more alert status after code red,´ said Dr. Gina Itchon, NMMC Senior citizens register for free vaccination against COVID-19 at SM City in Davao City on Tuesday (May 18, 2021), research and development department chief. the second day of vaccination for the city’s elderly residents. mindanews photo by gregorio bueno
Roman Catholics discourage liturgical singing during masses By CRIS DIAZ, Executive Editor
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY: The Roman Catholics in Misamis Oriental has discouraged liturgical singing during masses as among measures to avoid the spread of COVID-19 virus, Msgr Rey Monsanto said Wednesday. Monsanto said that Archbishop Jose A. Cabantan, of
the Archdiocese of Misamis Oriental, has issued a memorandum to limit the songs, if not, discourage the employment of “church choir” during mass offerings. He said that the measure is part of the health protocols that the church observes to mitigate the spread of the COVID -19
virus among churchgoers. Monsanto said that the spread of saliva droplets is inevitable when singing while the mass offering is going on. “The archbishop also encouraged priests to use their personal microphones while holding mass offerings,” See SINGING, page 11
During Friday noon´s City Hall press briefing, Dr. Itchon revealed that she received a text message from NMMC´s resident infectious diseases expert Dr. Chrysler Beja confirming the code red declaration. ´Dr. Beja told me regardless of what code we declared, if we cannot reduce the cases then (we are in a difficult situation). So we ask the city´s private hospitals to handle our non-COVID-19 cases,´ she said. The code red also means they are increasing their COVID-19 bed capacity from 30 to 24, Dr. Itchon said. ´Our outpatient services will be reduced from 300 patients to 150 patients a day because every
See SERVICES, page 11
Rufus bats 4 sessions a week in Congress By CRIS DIAZ, Executive Editor
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY: Deputy Speaker and Cagayan De Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez pushed for the fourday sessions a week in Congress for the house to have time to pass important legislative measures. "The goal is for the House to have enough time to pass important measures, such as the Bayanihan 3 proposal, before the sine die adjournment on June 4," Rodriguez said in a statement furnished the Mindanao Daily News. The P405.6-billion Bayanihan 3
stimulus package seeks to help 108 million Filipinos cope with the pandemic, he said. Rodriguez also expressed the confidence that Congress will approve the proposed stimulus package as additional funds. The lawmaker from Cagayan De Oro City also stated that the first component of the bill is the P216 billion for distribution to every Filipino at P2,000 each as a recovery measure from the economic cost of the pandemic to their livelihood.