MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang on Wednesday urged the unlocated travelers from South Africa who arrived last month to report to authorities, noting that the giving of false information during a public health emergency is punishable by the law.
The government is still looking for seven travelers from South Africa who entered the country from November 15 to 29 as a precautionary measure against the Omicron variant. Some of the travelers provided incomplete or incorrect contact numbers while others were unresponsive, according to the health department.
Acting presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles noted that the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act enumerates penalties for anyone who gives false information during a public health emergency.
"First and foremost, I do not want to scare them. Whoever you are, please come immediately and report yourselves, submit yourselves for testing immediately and report yourselves immediately to authorities. We’re not scaring you; we want your cooperation," Nograles told CNN Philippines.
"I will leave it to our law enforcement agencies or our prosecutors to investigate. So it (imposition of punishment) will not be immediate. We will investigate first, we’ll have to ask them also. They’ll have to ask them questions," he added.
Nograles, also the spokesman of the government's pandemic task force, clarified that the filing of cases against those who provided inaccurate information is the "last resort."
Among the prohibited acts under the law are non-cooperation of persons and entities that should report or respond to notifiable diseases or health events of public concern; and non-cooperation of persons or entities identified as having the notifiable disease or affected by the health event of public concern.
Any person or entity found to have violated the law shall be penalized with a fine ranging from P20,000 to P50,000 or imprisonment of not less than one month but not more than six months, or both depending on the decision of the court.
The Professional Regulation Commission has the authority to suspend or revoke the license to practice of any medical professional who violated the law. The Civil Service Commission may also suspend or revoke the civil service eligibility of a public servant who committed any of the violations mentioned in the law.
If the offense is committed by a public or private health facility, institution, agency, corporation, school or any juridical entity, the chief executive officer, president, general manager or officer-in-charge shall be held liable. The business permit and license to operate of the erring facility, institution, agency, corporation, school, or legal entity shall also be canceled.
Nograles said the government is ramping up its vaccination drive to protect Filipinos from Omicron and other COVID-19 variants.
"Because this Omicron variant... will not be the last variant of COVID-19. So we will just have to live with this virus and hopefully we will all be able to defeat it by everybody getting vaccinated and everyone just following the minimum public health standards especially this December, during Christmas time," he said.
The Philippine government banned inbound flights from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy from Nov. 28 until Dec. 15 to prevent the entry of the Omicron variant. Filipinos coming from these countries may enter the Philippines but they can only do so through government or non-government-initiated repatriation and bayanihan flights.