PNP looks for more quarantine facilities as Crame personnel work from home

MANILA, Philippines — As the national police scrambles to arrest the spread of the coronavirus in its own headquarters, the need for more quarantine facilities has emerged with more and more cops testing positive for the pathogen. 

Thursday marks the Philippine National Police's first day after police leadership approved the adoption of a modified work from home arrangement for non-uniformed personnel assigned at its national headquarters. 

"No lockdown as a whole but Camp Crame now is restricted to visitors [...] until further notice," Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, the agency's officer-in-charge, told reporters in a text message Thursday morning. 

"Based on our data the past days, we also noticed an upsurge of cases among our personnel. In this regard and after consultation with our Chief PNP, we are now identifying buildings and other facilities inside the NHQ that would be used as an additional quarantine facilities," he also said. 

This comes days after the PNP deployed over 9,000 cops to tightly enforce quarantine protocols amid the uniform Metro Manila curfew. 

Reminiscent of the enhanced community quarantine in 2020, thousands have already been fined, detained, and even arrested across the metro as a result. 

As it currently stands, data from the PNP Health Service show that there are 1,105 active cases of the pathogen among the PNP's ranks. Eleazar said it was yet unclear if these cases were of the virus' new variants, but the PNP has "initiated efforts to check on it." 

One Manila police station has already been forced to go on lockdown as the spike in coronavirus cases surges in Metro Manila. 

"There is already an ongoing assessment on alternative work arrangements for our uniformed personnel," Eleazar said. 

"We are now also crafting a guideline to modify command activities at NHQ that would introduce a combination of physical and virtual attendance in such activities."

Earlier Wednesday, the Department of Health recorded 4,387 cases of the coronavirus, marking the sixth straight day that the country reported more than 4,000 additional cases. 

It has been 366 days since enhanced community quarantine was first hoisted. The Philippines is still under the world's longest quarantine.