Imus, Cavite—Around 3.5 million Catholics in the province can now attend Mass starting June 15, once the Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases downgrades the status of Cavite from General Community Quarantine (GCQ) to Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) after the month-long GCQ that started on May 16.
Churches in areas under MGCQ are allowed to hold worship services at 50 percent of its building’s seating capacity.
“All the parish priests in the 82 parishes in 7 cities and 16 towns of Cavite are putting markings on all benches, preparing sanitizer, alcohol, foot bath in entrance of the church, thermal scanners, same as other gadgets used in IATF protocols,” Bishop Reynaldo Evangelista of the Diocese of Imus said.
There will be ushers and lay people to control the Mass, and when the seating capacity is full, others will be allowed to attend worship outside the churches, he added.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) suggested adding more Mass schedules so that the worship does not become crowded.
Anticipated masses will start at on Saturdays to cope with the volume of churchgoers, the bishop said.
On the mass proper program, there will be no hand-to-mouth communion, only communion by the hand, lining up to follow the markings for physical distance during the communion, he added.
“Always wear facemask, observed proper distancing, no holding hands and we prohibit the shaking of hands during the sign of peace,” Evangelista said.
Each church in the province has a different version on how to apply the physical distance measure on benches, he said. At the Our Lady of Pillars cathedral in Cavite, they put numbers on seats to indicate capacity, while some put seat marks, and others put barriers for social distancing.
There will be one direction for entrance and exit to avoid collision, the bishop added.
“COVID 19 has been a challenge for all of us, to take care of our health and to care for one another. The churches followed President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of health situation in our country and obeyed government instruction to go through the process like schools, business,” he said.
“With this, people became aware, alert to the spread of the virus. The strange thing is, the people are praying more often, many families pray together, attending Mass via social media livestream during the past 13 Sundays of lockdown,” Evangelista added. Dennis Abrina