BY JUDY F. PARTLOW
The Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NOCCI) is ready to implement the contactless “No QR (Quick Response) Code, No Entry Policy” in business establishments to help ease contact tracing measures in relation to the Covid-19 threat.
Dumaguete-based businessman Edward Du, past president of NOCCI and currently the Central Visayas regional governor of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said “the entire business sector is now pushing for the No QR Code, No Entry policy to gradually eliminate the use of pen and paper for contact tracing purposes”.
Du said the NOCCI has 200 members and along this line “we are united”, even if there is no approval yet from the province’s Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases. “We will push it through because the business sector is free to adopt its own health and safety protocols that will help increase sales,” he said.
“It is just like the ‘no face mask, no entry’ policy and business establishments are required to generate or print a hard copy of the QR Code for free,” he said.
Du said it is their advocacy to push for this contact tracing method, which will result to faster and convenient way for government workers/volunteers locating contacts of suspect or confirmed Covid-19 cases. He added that it will also benefit the public as they no longer have to stand and wait in long queues at establishments, stores, supermarkets, and even banks.
The current practice in some establishments is to require people to line up at a safe physical distance, present a valid identification card and/or community quarantine pass, and write down their personal information.
Du said the Department of Trade and Industry will be the enforcer of this endeavor, and hopes that the agency will soon commence this practice in Dumaguete City and Negros Oriental.
“It is time for the economy to start moving again. Six months of community quarantine is too long,” Du said.
The PCCI-Central Visayas and its members earlier issued a joint resolution urging the DTI to issue a memorandum circular mandating business owners “to adopt a standardized Quick Response Code design format for a more efficient contact tracing in the event of local Covid-19 transmission in the community”.*
