CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – “Pursuant to the City of San Fernando’s Executive Order No. CMO0221-21, establishments offering basic necessities and restaurants offering take-out and delivery will be here to serve you.”
So posted SM City Pampanga in its Facebook page on Sunday.
Mayor Edwin “EdSa” Santiago on Saturday issued the executive order “strengthening the guidelines set in EO 5-2021 (Reiterating strict compliance with the health and safety protocols and other purposes) of the Provincial Government of Pampanga and providing additional measures to mitigate the surge of Covid-19 in the City of San Fernando.” On the very day the EO was issued, the city registered 104 new active cases.
The EO took effect 12:01 a.m. April 12 and ends 11:59 p.m. April 18.
Where shopping malls are concerned, the EO allowed only essential establishments like banks, supermarkets, pharmacies, and hardware stores to operate. Only takeout and delivery services are allowed for food establishments. Dine–in is strictly prohibited.
Hence, SM-Pampanga’s advisory in FB listing the essential stores open from April 12 to 18, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily and the restaurants that offer takeout and delivery, capped with the call “We encourage everyone to follow minimum safety protocols at all times.”
In their very same FB page, SM City Pampanga posted likewise: “We are here to serve you! Here are the list of open stores and restaurants that offer dine–in, takeout and delivery from April 12 to 18.”
Among those open are “non-essential” tenants as clothing and shoe outlets, beauty care products, watch and jewelry boutiques, a religious store, sports shops, and music stores,
No, this is no open defiance by SM City Pampanga of Santiago’s order. The open establishments outside the ambit of the EO, located as they are in Mexico town, the country’s longest shopping mall straddling the territorial boundaries of the city and the municipality.
Curious now, to the point of ridiculous, will be the situation at SM City Pampanga with its western thirdon GCQ-like protocols and its eastern two-thirds exercising MGCQ laxity.
An uneven playing field obtaining therein, the tenants on the city side clearly disadvantaged to the profit of those on the Mexico side, both sides offering basically the same goods and services.
Craving Japanese dine-in? Prohibited at Botejyu, open at Ramen Nagi and Sumo Niku.
Sit-down burgers? No go at Burger King, lap it up at Army Navy and Zark’s.
Clothes? There are more shops at the Mexico side.
With SM City Pampanga mallgoers coming from everywhere in the province and beyond – at least those within the age groups allowed by MGCQ – free to move through the invisible territorial divide of SM City Pampanga, how will this impact the very purpose of Santiago’s EO – of curbing the Covid surge in the city?
Curious, indeed.
