March 29, 2024

Until after Holy Week, Baguio is not allowing tourists or non-essential travels from the National Capital Region and three provinces, which have been placed in a bubble in attempts to contain the continuous surge of Covid-19 cases especially from these areas.
The city, however, remains open to tourists from nearby and other provinces, including those from the NCR who need to travel to Baguio for essential purposes upon submission to triage protocols and submission of supporting documents.
Atty. Althea Alberto of the City Mayor’s Office said the recent revision on the travel guidelines to the city is to conform with the latest Inter-Agency Task Force guidelines restricting travel of those from the Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal known as the NCR plus and Laguna from March 22 to April 4.
The same guidelines apply for other travelers and essential travels from the NCR plus supporting documents pertaining to travel or business in the city; health declaration form registration; triage procedure; negative RT-PCR or antigen test result conducted either within 72 hours prior to travel or at the central triage unit
Those testing positive at the triage via antigen test will be either sent back home or to undergo quarantine in the city pending results of RT-PCR test.
Maj. Judy Jasmine Palicos of the Baguio City Police Office has assured personnel at the border checkpoint are strictly implementing the updated travel rules and explain the same to travelers in case they have to be stopped and asked to return to their place of origin.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong during the Monday flag raising ceremony has announced the need to comply with Resolution 104 of the IATF, while it will have impacts on the city’s tourism industry since 70 percent of its tourists come from these areas.
“We are expecting a downtrend in the number of visitors especially this Holy Week. (But) that is one way of controlling mobility,” Magalong said, as he noted the Covid-19 incidence in the city went up by 100 percent in the past days.
He added the city government is also adopting the 50 percent workforce capacity in some of its offices and 50 percent in work-from-home arrangement until April 4. – Hanna C. Lacsamana