Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya—Governor Carlos Padilla has ordered the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group to arrest and put into custody truck drivers and their helpers carrying Locally-Stranded Individuals (LSIs) while plying the national highway in the province.
Padilla also told the PNP-HPG here headed by Captain Michael Bongtayon to impound trucks used for ferrying LSIs for violating the "Bayanihan Act to Heal as One" law.
"The PNP-HPG should also establish a checkpoint in our province to check on the compartments and cargoes of trucks to ensure that no undocumented LSIs will slip through our province," he added.
Padilla made the order during Monday's meeting of the Provincial COVID-19 Task Force at the Pasalubong Center in this capital town.
He was responding to a report from the agricultural sector which requested the strict spot-checking of trucks plying the national highway in Nueva Vizcaya, hemmed in by the Sierra Madre and the Caraballo mountains in Cagayan Valley.
Bongtayon, the PNP-HPG provincial officer, confirmed the report, saying trucks had been ferrying undocumented LSIs as their backload for extra income.
"This unscrupulous act has been practiced by truck drivers to earn extra income from the payment of LSIs," he said.
Bongtayon said they were able to arrest previous violators of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aside from the arrest, truck drivers, helpers, and caught LSIs would also be quarantined in the province for an unspecified required period while facing cases in court.