ZAMBOANGA CITY — The Zamboanga City Reformatory Center announced on Monday that the center was placed under preventive lockdown after five inmates tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 last month.

City Jail Warden J/Chief Insp. Fe Arcillas Galvez, however, clarified that the five inmates who tested positive were all asymptomatic and healthy.

She is also urging the local government here to amend the city ordinance that mandates mandatory Covid-19 testing to all inmates inside the center before releasing them to their respective families or be transferred to the San Ramon Penal Farm colony.

Galvez claimed that all inmates are already fully vaccinated and nobody is confined at any private or government hospitals here.

City ordinance 575 requires all persons deprived of liberty to be tested before they will be released to their families or transferred to the San Ramon Penal Farm Colony to serve their sentence.

In a letter to Galvez, the regional Department of Health stressed that there is no need to conduct swab or antigen testing for PDLs as it is not a requirement anymore, but the local government is insisting and requiring ZCRC officials to conduct the test.

"The national government has already allowed the conduct of the face-to-face classes and the non-wearing of masks in open areas," Galvez said.

"I hope the city government can refill the city ordinance since the national government is already lenient to the people in the use of masks," she added.

Galvez said the center is mandated to conduct some social and moral intervention for the detainees while detained at the center.

As of the moment, Galvez stressed that all intervention programs are suspended as the city ordinance is prohibiting them to do so. Most of the PDLs have to be relieved from stress, they need to breathe clean and fresh air.