Vice Governor Rene Lopez Relampagos and the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) pushed on Tuesday, September 20, 2021, for a better set of departure protocol in Bohol’s sea ports following the release of a committee report, an information says.
The said committee report recommended for the simplified and uniform protocol for outgoing passengers in Tagbilaran City and other ports in the province.
The idea is to do away with filling out of unnecessary forms that cause inconvenience to the riding public.
This SP’s action stemmed from several complaints from the riding public regarding the inconvenience of filling out of health declaration forms, which are time consuming and redundant.
During the previous session, Board Member Jade Bautista raised some concerns of the public regarding the departure protocol at the Tagbilaran sea port.
The said concern was immediately referred by Relampagos to the joint Committees on Tourism, Health and Public Sanitation, and Peace & Order and Public Safety.
Accordingly, the committees conducted a joint meeting which was held on Sept. 20, 2021.
It was attended by Senior Port Police Inspector Greg T. Dela Cruz of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA), Ensign Edzel Gonzaga, Petty Officer 1 Paul Vincent Yu of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), Patrolman Hans Ericson Casocot of the Philippine National Police Maritime Group, and Roel Maboloc of Ocean Jet.
According to the joint committee report submitted on Tuesday, the documents required to be filled out by the passengers give unnecessary inconvenience to the travelers.
Passengers would buy tickets at one end of the sea port only to walk to the opposite end to fill out the health declaration forms and to submit the negative antigen test result and the S-PaSs at the PCG substation.
Travelers need to walk from the other end of the port back to the ticketing office to claim their boat tickets. Upon returning to the ticket booth, departing travelers need to fill out another form.
Likewise, upon entering the Tagbilaran Passenger Terminal Building, another form has to be filled out.
Board Member Elpidio Bonita questioned the filling out of the forms considering that there is no medical personnel present to validate the information provided on the said forms.
According to Bautista, the Traze App which is currently being used by Ocean Jet, is already sufficient as a contract tracing system.
Moreover, Board Member Romulo Cepedoza observed that there are no forms needed to fill out at the Tubigon port.
Meanwhile, as a result of the meeting the resource persons agreed to streamline the protocol to avoid unnecessary inconvenience among departing travelers.
It was agreed that a PCG personnel will be assigned at the boarding area of the Passenger Terminal Building from 8 am to 5 pm in to make the departure process more convenient for travelers.
The PCG personnel will help facilitate the filling out of the forms so travelers need not go from one end of the port and back.
The departure protocol will be implemented in other Bohol ports such as Loon, Getafe, Jagna, and Tubigon as well.