Curfew for minors on during Dinagyang

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — The ordinance on curfew for minors will still be in effect even as Iloilo City celebrate the Dinagyang Festival on January 26 and 27.

Senior Supt. Ruperto Floro, director of the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO), told The Freeman that policemen would still enforce the amended version of Regulation Ordinance 2006-020. “Maski Dinagyang, the ordinance was not lifted. So, we have to enforce it,” he said.

As a leeway, however, policemen might not hold the juveniles in custody of authorities. “We would just warn them,” said Floro.

The ordinance approving the revised ordinance prohibits “minors to wander, saunter, or loiter in any places specified herein after 11:00 p.m. and before 4:00 a.m. and providing penalties thereof and for other purposes.”

Some provisions were made because the old ordinance come in conflict with the Republic Act 9344 known as the Juvenile and Justice Welfare Act, specifically in dealing and handling the children at risk and children in conflict with the law.

Under the revised ordinance, there are some exemptions made like “when the minor is personally and actually accompanied by his or her parents or guardian who are in charge of his/her care in custody.”

Also exempted from the ordinance is if a “minor is on his/her way home after attending educational program, social civic, religious and family affairs or gatherings such as, but not limited to, convocation, convention, seminar, scholastic and commencement activities, Christmas eve, New Year’s Eve, Holy Week, Yuletide Mass, weddings and birthdays and All Saints’ Day.”

Floro meanwhile said the ICPO would be deploying around 4,600 policemen to secure the Dinagyang Festival.

The final employment will include organic personnel of ICPO and augmentation forces from the Regional Public Safety Battalion (RPCB) 6, and personnel undergoing the Field Training Program (FTP) and PNP Modified Special Counter-Insurgency Operations Unit Training (SCOUT).

Members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines will also conduct special operations for the purpose, with augmentation troops to support the civil disturbance management (CDM) team, communication group, and medical group, among others. (FREEMAN)