Bohol allows RAT results

in lieu of expired RT-PCR

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, May 30 (PIA) -- In consideration of a negative for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) test through the gold standard Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) that has lapsed the required period of time due to cancellation of boats or plane trips, Bohol is offering another option for returning residents and tourists coming in to the province.

Executive Order No. 28, series of 2021 has amended provisions of two previous executive orders and now allows a negative for COVID-19 through Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) as an alternative.

Gov. Arthur Yap clarified that the new order is only for travelers who previously submitted negative RT-PCR test results but whose flights or boat trips were cancelled due to typhoons or for other unforeseen reasons.

They will be allowed to board their re-scheduled flights or boat trips provided that they are able to present a negative test result for COVID via RAT, which should be taken 24 hours from the time of departure.

This negative test by RAT should be presented with the RT PCR test results of the swab which should be within seven days from the new departure date.

The new executive order amended provisions of the earlier Executive Order No. 17 series of 2021 and Executive Order No. 17-A.

Executive Order No. 17 implemented the Inter Agency Task Force Resolution No. 101 series of 2021 issued February 2021, which also amended Executive Order No. 12, series of 2021 which removed the repeat testing and the medical certificate as well as the Philippine National Police Task Force COVID Shield Travel Authority as requirements for travel to Bohol.

A week later, the governor issued Executive Order No. 17-A which removed the option for testing upon arrival for returning residents who could not present RT-PCR as an earlier requirement and reiterated the exemption of children four years old below from the RT-PCR test requirements.

The governor acknowledged that there are instances when travelers to Bohol by air or sea travel complied with and submitted the negative for COVID-19 test results by RT-PCR but their flights or trips were cancelled due to typhoons and other unforeseen reasons given by the airlines and shipping companies.

On the other hand, returning residents who have been suspected to have COVID-19 or COVID-19 probable and those confirmed with COVID-19 can come home as long as they follow the Department of Health guidelines set in Memorandum No. 2020-0512 issued in November 2020.

As to the new E.O., it also put up alternative documentary requirements for returning residents who have clinically recovered from confirmed COVID-19 positive cases.

It says within three months from scheduled travel, a person who tested positive for COVID-19 can present the positive RT-PCR administered not over three months from departure to Bohol and a certification from licensed attending physician stating the patient has clinically recovered.

For those who had mild symptoms, they must have completed at least 10 days of home or temporary treatment and monitoring facility isolation from the onset of the disease, including the three days of being clinically recovered and asymptomatic.

For patients who had moderate or severe or critical symptoms, they can return if they present a certificate of completion for 21 days of isolation in a hospital from the onset of the illness, inclusive of three days of being clinically recovered and asymptomatic.

For those who are asymptomatic immune-competent who test positive for RT-PCR and remained asymptomatic, at least 10 days of isolation from the date of specimen collection is needed before they are allowed to travel back to Bohol. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

RT-PCR PAST 72 HOURS PLUS RAT. When RT-PCR is costly, an expired RT-PCR, like one that is over 72 hours already, can still be used as travel document when it is paired with a negative RAT test result, according to Executive Order 28. (PIA Bohol FILE PHOTO)

NOT AS GRAND. Bohol, with its Executive Order No. 28 may not be putting up a grand welcome as this, but several have commented that getting a RAT after completing the RT PCR still entails over a thousand pesos cash, which a returning resident may not afford. (rahchiu/PIABohol files)

Benliw SRIP to boost Bohol's 

rice sufficiency - NIA

BENLIW, UBAY, Bohol, May 27 (PIA) -- The first of Bohol’s newest assets to help boost local rice productivity and Ubay’s second irrigation facility intended to increase rice harvests of about 600 farmers opened with National Irrigation Administration (NIA) Senior Deputy Administrator and retired Army Brigader Gen. Abraham Bagasin during its turnover of operations on May 27.

Trapping the run-off from Pasanan Creek, the Benliw Small Reservoir Irrigation Project (SRIP) covers an irrigation service area of over 400 hectares and even upgradable to a few hundreds more, according to former NIA Project Manager Engr. Modesto Membreve.

Membreve, who retired when the project was 90 percent completed, was personally seeing to it that the project would be completed along with more upcoming operationalization of four other similar facilities in Bohol.

Membreve said the facility is a brainchild of then Cong. Erico Aumentado and former NIA Bohol Manager Engr. Calixto Seroje.

Meanwhile, Aumentado, who could not see the realization of his envisioned infrastructure, had his son see to it that the project can be used according to its intended purpose.

In his message, the younger Aumentado said Pres. Rodrigo Duterte has poured solid investments in Bohol, and not just for the 600 farmers in Benliw catchment.

He shared how he remembers his father lobbying for the facility's funding until Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was a close friend, put up the estimated P620-M which was later revised to P645-M facility now.

NIA Regional Manager Engr. Wilson Lopez said that aside from irrigation which is the primary purpose of the multi-million facility, Benliw SRIP is also eyed for aquaculture and soil stabilization of the region which features rolling hills and vast valleys.

Set to serve rice farms in Benliw, Imelda, Cagting, Biabas and Sinandigan, Benliw SRIP can hold as much as 2.668 million cubic meters of storage dependent on the mean annual rainfall of 1,020.00 millimeters producing an annual run-off of 3.88 million cubic meters.

Bagasin, in his message during the turn-over after the ceremonial opening of the dam’s intake gates, said he sees the ideal coordination that happened in Bohol with the national and local governments that facilitated the fast tracking of the infrastructure development.

"Unlike other areas, we could feel the resistance, but not here. This is due to the coordination and cooperation of local government units," he said.

Benliw Dam can also be a place for recreational activities for additional income, Bagasin told the members of the Benliw Small Reservoir Irrigation System who would be benefitting from the project.

Along with Benliw, upcoming major irrigation projects for turnover anytime soon are Bonotbonot SRIP, Calunasan Calape SRIP, Malinao heightening project and Bayongan rehab, which could contribute greatly to the dream of making Ubay and Pilar as Bohol’s rice granaries. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

HIS FATHER'S SON. Cong. Erico Aristotle Aumentado, along with NIA Board Secretary Atty. Giselle Villamor, thanked NIA through Senior Deputy Administrator BGen. Abraham Bagasin and NIA Regional Manager Wilson Lopez for realizing his father's dream for Ubay, his hometown. Benliw SRIP, which NIA opened, would irrigate 400 hectares of prime rice lands here and help around 600 farmers. (rahc/PIA7/Bohol)

THE GESTURE SAYS IT ALL. Cong. Erico Aristotle Aumentado, NIA Senior Deputy Administrator Abraham Bagasin, and NIA Board Secretary Atty. Giselle Villamor share the limelight during the inauguration and turnover of the P645-M Benliw SRIP on May 27. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

COVID-19 deaths in Bohol now at 54

CORTES, Bohol, May 29 (PIA) -- Three days before the month ends, the total number of deaths brought about by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Bohol scaled up to 54, of which 14 happened within the month of May.

It may be recalled that since March 16, 2020 until end of 2020, Bohol recorded 17 COVID –related deaths, according to data gathered from the reports by the Bohol Inter-Agency task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

This brings the COVID-19 deaths in Bohol in 2021 to 37.

While in 2020, the monthly fatality rate or the average number of deaths is pegged at 1.4, which noticeably high at 7.4 deaths per month.

The highest monthly death rates in 2021 were recorded in April and May.

In April, 13 Boholanos died of the dreaded disease but the figure was surpassed with the 14 deaths recorded in May, three days before the month ends.

Of the 14 deaths in May, five of the deaths happened in the last week.

With this, active cases of COVID-19 in Bohol are pegged between 400 to 700 cases a day.

The week also marked itself with the hospitals trying to keep their stocks of tocilizumab and redesivir, the most common medications for patients with severe cases.

The recent month also had been highlighted by hospitals experiencing shortage of personnel due to mandatory quarantines after getting exposed to COVID-19 positive individuals.

As this went on, COVID-19 trackers noticed a considerable decline in cases compared to a week ago.

On May 22, active COVID-19 cases in Bohol reached 723 and 48 deaths.

This week, May 29, the active cases is now at 485 with 54 deaths.

On May 25, according to reports from the Provincial Health Office, around 36,024 Boholanos working in the health and medical frontlines as well as senior citizens have received their first dose of the vaccine.

Of the 36,024, only 16,270 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine to get full protection.

The figure is 45 percent of those who received their first doses. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

HIGHER MONTHLY DEATH RATE. From a litte over one death per month in 2020, 2021 brings in 3.17 monthly death rate, a figure that should shale peole who still refuse to get the vaccines into thinking the deaths would soon get to them of they come unprotected. (PIABohol) 

BIDAWA Bakeshop: Mixing 

renewable energy, livelihood 

for women empowerment

With the cold mornings and bitter nights at sea, residents of Bilangbilangan Island, mostly fishermen who scour the Danajon reef waters, know how important it is to have some fresh bread when the pangs of hunger grumble in one’s stomach.

At dawn, when the wives, plastic pails in hand, troop to the makeshift ports, a few pieces of fresh bread would be among the comforts that would greet the sleep-deprived fishers. But Talibon, the best option for fresh bread, is some 20 kilometers on to the mainland, past small islets and often rough seas.

The few traders who venture into bread consignments loaded in the few pumpboats ferrying to the islands have to contend with the space for the boxes with passengers. In the equation, the bread often does not get the driest seat, so the bread arrives soggy and salty if not pressed beyond recognition.

“Mahal na ang pan kon moabut dire, usahay namyahok, usahay basa na (The bread is sold here at a costlier price and sometimes they arrive here soggy)," shared Wammy Angelitud while picking with a metal tong some pan frances and putting them in a wrapper to hand in to a customer.

One among the 245 members of Bilangbilangan Daku Women’s Association (BIDAWA), Wammy and women in the island have been into different livelihood ventures, most of them running only for a few months and then the cycle of failures start and the members are back at being poor housewives or women wanting to have a little bit of financial independence.

  

"Daghan na kaayo mi og projects nga gisugdan, daghang pundo ang nasayang, di man molahutay kay hatag man lang. Diha nay asinan, tambong mi og seminar pero igo ra gyud pagtambong, pag-operate pa sa project, wala mogaya (We have started several projects and the funds have gone to waste as it could not be sustained. We attended a salt production seminar one but we never got to the point of operations)." This was the common comment among the women who are now organized by PROCESS Bohol for the livelihood component of the Renewable Energy and Livelihood for Youth (RELY). The present enterprise is much better, according to them.

Project RELY, which is funded by the European Union, has Vivant Foundation giving renewable energy options through a P18-M solar power package to off-grid schools in six Bohol islands of Talibon and Bien Unido. The project also comes with livelihood counterpart and this is served by PROCESS Bohol, said Executive director Aurelio Salgados Jr.

After weeks of consultations and despite the pandemic keeping people from going out of their houses, PROCESS facilitated the BIDAWA members to their choice of livelihood.

Enter the BIDAWA Bakeshop, an enterprise that officially started in December of last year. Working with a starting capital from half of the members capital buildup (CBU), and after a series of trainings by Technical Education and Skills Development Authority as well as the Department of Science and Technology, the group started the meticulous operation of the bakery, making sure there is a decent return of investment.

"This is while providing fresh bread to the people of Bilangbilangan Daku and its adjoining Barangay Bilangbilangan Diot,"shares Angelitud, who was garbed in a BIDAWA Bakeshop apron and matching Tshirt.

Not really picking on the backbreaking task of mixing dough while organizing and mobilizing women in the pandemic, BIDAWA, now managed by women who have been whetted in time by failures, became overly zealous about their new venture. That formed part of their success.

"Just like baking bread, in organizing communities everything must be done right," Salgados, a veteran community organizer and now director, shared. “From our CBU and some profits, we were able to buy a motorcycle so we could deliver the bread to the other side of the island, and we paid for half of the lot where our bakery now stands,” Wammy excitedly reported.

Using the equipment from the RELY project, BIDAWA now eyes buying industrial capacity ovens, aside from the eight-tray oven that their two bakers use now.“Sales are good, because we know the demand and understand the needs here, so we do not overproduce and bear on the spoils,” she added.

For the few unsold day-old bread they became today’s bahug-bahug, another island favorite. 

BIDAWA has to transport their day’s bakes to nearby Hingotanan Island to join the turn-over ceremonies of the island's solar electrification systems on May 20. Aside from their certified Boholano favorites: pan de sal, pan frances, pan tam-is, pan putok, binangkal and many more bread with fillings in their showcases, BIDAWA also bakes carrot cakes, custard cakes, and chiffons for special occasions.

Now also planning to sell to neighboring islands through concession, BIDAWA is into buying a pumpboat for their offshore deliveries. “Business is good. We are now preparing to give out dividends in December, that is despite paying for the bakers, delivery boy, collector and marketing, and operations manager,” she proudly said.

For BIDAWA, getting the multimillion solar power connection in the island’s school is already a good assurance that their kids would have a far better quality education.

But getting into a livelihood that pays for their service and sacrifices and augments their kids’ school needs and food and allows them a bit of financial power, this to them is more than enough empowerment they expected from the funding agencies helping them. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

BAKING EMPOWERMENT. PROCESS Bohol and its partners in EU-funded RELY project basks on the success achieved by BIDAWA Baskeshop and the other ventures that women in Talibon and Bien Unido's islands are now getting as an income alternative to fishing. BIDAWA assures fresh bread to fishers every day, while reaping profits that could also help its members. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

ISLAND LIFE. Bilangbilangan Daku is among the six Bien Unido and Talibon barangays that are off-grid and granted the solar electrification of its public schools. Accessible by pump boats that also act as public transport, these islands also received livelihood assistance packaged with the renewable energy for climate change mitigation. (PIA Bohol)

HANDS ON MANAGEMENT. BIDAWA Secretary Wammy Angelitud personally helps manage their stall during the turnover of solar electrification of their island's school at Hingotanan Island. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

WOMEN EMPOWERED, Along with BIDAWA are women's livelihood ventures in Guindacpan, Malingin, and four other islands served by the off-grid solar power systems granted by Project RELY. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

LOWLY BINANGKAL. Even the lowly binangkal gets a prominent treatment as islanders relish the freshly baked bread from BIDAWA Bakeshop in Bilangbilangang Daku island Biend Unido, Bohol. (PIA Bohol)

Decisiveness helped Lila town 

contain COVID-19 outbreak

Decisiveness and discipline without favor.

This is no secret and Lila Mayor Atty. Arturo Piollo II shared this in making his town survive in this COVID-19 pandemic.

Discussing this during the Network Briefing interview of the Presidential Communications and Operations Office (PCOO) in its May 17, 2021 segment an
d aired over national television networks, Piollo thinks this is just like any local chief executive’s approach given the natural responsibility in time of this coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Lila health authorities noticed an unusual spike in the local COVID-19 cases in late April and immediately, with the Rural Heath Unit and the contact tracing teams in town, the mayor issued Executive Order No. 8 series of 2021 implementing manned localized and strategic granular lockdowns with corresponding quarantine buffer zones in specific quarantine measures.

The mayor, in consultation with his health workers noted that the surge of COVID-19 cases was clustered in one locality, leading to a local spike of 31 local transmission cases.

“To contain the further spread of the disease, detect its extent, and treat the infected individuals, it is imperative to order the temporary lockdown of certain areas in the town with zoning containment provisions in line with the guidelines of the national Task Force against COVID-19,” the mayor wrote in his executive order.

In a week’s time, Lila drastically reduced its infection to less than 10. “What we did is what every Local Chief Executive would do in protecting his people, by following the protocols set up by the IATF," Piollo told PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar in his radio program.

Despite this major victory, the mayor says he sees nothing spectacular with what he did. Being results-oriented, the mayor made the call to be decisive and to be effective in implementing the IATF protocols without any reservations, and the local authorities saw it worked.

“All we need is strict implementation and that is what we did. Decisiveness and immediate action,” he said.

A long-term solution for fighting the pandemic, however, is gaining herd immunity through vaccination.

Leading a small coastal town in southern Bohol, Piollo admitted there are still people in his town who are hesitant to take the vaccines for personal or religious beliefs. But, the local government unit did not stop.

“What we did is do more intensive information drives. If we know of people who hesitate (to get the vaccines), I asked the nurses deployed for the Nurses Deployment Program of the Department of Health to visit (these people) on house-to-house basis and convince them," said Piollo.

Heading a relatively small town where almost everyone knows the mayor, he used it to the town’s advantage. “In the town’s upland barangays, I personally go to convince the frontliners, barangay officials, and elderly (who are in the present prioritization list). I’ve been doing this on a personal basis, considering that Lila is not that big a town,” he confessed.

With this, Lila has achieved a 92 percent accomplishment in its vaccine rollout for its frontline healthcare workers, senior citizens, and individuals with comorbidities, the mayor reported. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

SHARING SOLUTIONS THAT WORK. Lila mayor Atty Arturo Piollo II told PCOO Secretary

Martin Andanar that all he did was be decisive when there was a call to. Then he has to implement what the IATF has put up to contain the spread of the disease, in his sharing during the Network Briefing organized by the PCOO and aired nationwide. (PIABohol)

CRITICAL TIME. Lila set up control points and contained a target area where the local transmission has been noted and prevented the spread of the virus. (PIA Bohol/LILA MPS)