Overlooked by many is the excellent job local officials in General Santos City have done so far.
As one of the major hubs in Mindanao, it has kept COVID infection to the barest minimum, with only one confirmed case and a total of only 14 PUIs. It has placed more than a thousand under monitoring but that number has been reduced to less than 100, a month after it declared the city under community quarantine.
Before that, in February, it is the first city to declare a state of calamity and release P10M for the purpose.
With an annual budget of P2.3B, it has the capacity to sustain an enhanced community lockdown until at least June.
It is the first city in the country to implement a total lockdown, on April 5. It followed the successful one-day city-wide shutdown with a 4-day Lenten lockdown that began Thursday and will last until Easter Sunday.
It is also the first local government unit to adopt a barangay clustering scheme to limit the movement of residents with the aim of totally locking down a contiguous area in the possibility of outbreak of infections and PUIs in a certain barangay.
So far, it has already procured rice that will be enough for distribution to majority of low-income earners in the city.
It will soon distribute culled sows (swine) to every barangays for distribution. In case of a lengthened ECQ or a total locakdown, it is also ready to purchase frozen pork carcass in several storage facilities in the city.
A local canning factory has donated P10-M worth of export-grade canned tuna that will likewise be distributed in the city.
