ILIGAN CITY – The local government unit (LGU) of Marawi City opened a new quarantine and treatment facility over the weekend.

Marawi City Mayor Majul Gandamra said the new facility which was opened on Saturday would help decongest the provincial screening and quarantine facility in Barangay Sagonsongan.

The facility is a converted PHP30-million Siyapen Center, the first community-based drug rehabilitation center which was funded by the Ayala Foundation and turned over to the local government unit in January 2018. “Siyapen” is named after the Maranao word for “care”.

It has a 60-bed capacity and will house locally stranded individuals (LSIs) who are tested positive for Covid-19 but asymptomatic.

At present, all returning LSIs are screened through rapid testing at the Sagonsongan facility. If found reactive of antibodies and show no flu-like symptoms, they are isolated at the 100-bed facility managed by the Lanao del Sur provincial government.

“On the previous setup, those LSIs who were reactive (in the rapid test), we quarantine them at the Sagonsongan facility if their houses are not ideal for isolation. Covid-19 positive LSIs are increasing that is why we opened Siyapen,” Gandamra said.

Only Marawi residents will be quarantined in Siyapen, he added. Those who are going home to their province but reactive of the rapid test will either stay at the facility in Sagonsongan or fetched by their local disaster risk reduction and management team for quarantine at their LGU’s facilities.

Covid-19 update

As of June 28, Marawi City recorded 19 coronavirus cases who are all LSIs that started going home in June.

Eleven of them have recovered and were allowed to go home but are still being monitored by the Barangay Health Emergency team (BHERT).

Meanwhile, 11 others are still waiting for the results of the reverse transcript polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.

Some 664 LSIs returned home to Marawi since the start of the “Hatid Probinsya” program -- 497 of them are in home quarantine, 26 at the quarantine facility, and 141 have completed their 14-day quarantine. (PNA)