Transport woes affects shipment of COVID-19 testing booths to Region 12, BARMM
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 12:30 PM Sun May 10, 2020
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By:
John M. Unson
A prototype of the COVID-19 specimen collection booth fabricated by DOST. (Contributed photo)
COTABATO CITY --- The Department of Science and Technology has five COVID-19 specimen collection booths for central Mindanao but shipment from Metro Manila down south is a problem.
Officials at the helm of various anti-coronavirus frontline groups in Region 12 and in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Saturday the specimen collection booths, or SCBs, are best transported direct from Metro Manila to the Maguindanao Airport in Datu Odin Sinsuat town via a C-130 military aircraft.
The five small collapsible SCBs weighs 800 kilograms each, according to sources from southern regional offices of DOST.
The DOST has reportedly earmarked one SCB for the BARMM regional government, which is presently constructing a multi-million COVID-19 isolation facility in the premises of the Cotabato Sanitarium Hospital in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao.
One of the five SCBs from DOST central office is intended for the Cotabato Regional Medical Center in Cotabato City, the administrative seat of BARMM.
Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of BARMM, said Saturday they will try to tap the military’s Western Mindanao Command and the Philippine National Police for possible cooperation in hauling the SCBs from Metro Manila to central Mindanao.
The central office of DOST is located in Bicutan in Taguig City.
Sinarimbo, presiding chairperson of the multi-sector Regional Advisory Council of the Police Regional Office-BARMM, said he will relay the issue to Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of WestMinCom based in Zamboanga City.
DOST sources told reporters Saturday their last recourse is to ship the five SCBs to Davao City from where they can deliver the units to recipients in different parts of central Mindanao.
Cotabato City, the center of central Mindanao, is about five hours away from Davao City via overland travel while the Maguindanao Airport near the Army’s Camp Siongco is only eight kilometers away.