By Minka Klaudia Tiangco The Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IAFT-EID) will be the one to decide whether vessels carrying Chinese crew members will be barred from entering the country amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Friday. Philippine Coast Guard (MANILA BULLETIN) Commodore Armando Balilo, PCG spokesperson, said this after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) allowed a vessel with Chinese crew members to load chromite ore on Homonhon Island in Guiuan town, Eastern Samar, despite the opposition of local government officials. “Task Force to decide. We will implement if we have orders. Meantime, we will ask our personnel to check,” he said. “No sail policy sa passengers lang. ‘Yung mga cruise ship pinayagan pero sakay lang mga crew na Filipino na bababa (The no-sail policy is for passengers only. Only the cruise ships carrying Filipino passengers are allowed to go down),” he added. Officials of the Eastern Samar prohibited the entry of all local and foreign vessels to protect residents from COVID-19. But with the mining operation by the MV VW Peace, residents of the area grew anxious and fearful that the government’s efforts to contain the spread of the disease will “go down the drain,” Eastern Samar Governor Ben Evardone said in a letter to Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu on Tuesday. The DENR, however, said measures were being undertaken to ensure the safety of Eastern Samar residents. The said vessel is manned by a crew of 13 Chinese and four Myanmar nationals. It arrived at Guiuan town on April 4 and started loading about 7,000 metric tons of chromite ore worth P61 million on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary and concurrent IATF-EID spokesperson Karlo Nograles recently said that they allowed foreign cruise ships carrying Filipino crewmembers to dock in Manila, subject to quarantine guidelines, and to be used as quarantine facilities for returning Filipino workers. The foreign crew onboard the said cruise ships will only be allowed to disembark in Manila after completing the 14-day quarantine upon disembarkation and “for the sole purpose of taking outbound flights to their final destination abroad.” The Coast Guard is currently assisting a total of 148 repatriated Filipino seafarers and workers from Korea, Indonesia, Qatar, US, and Taiwan, with their 14-day quarantine onboard two ships converted into quarantine facilities.