Filipinos are calling the attention of various local government units to avail of free sanitation tents designed by students and the alumni of the University of the Philippines for public use amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
A chief design officer shared that he and a team of industrial designers, chemists and engineers from UP Diliman’s College of Fine Arts, College of Science and College of Engineering started to design an “affordable and easy” sanitation tent.
The tents can be used at (but are not limited to) hospital entrances, MRT or LRT stations, bus stops, offices, grocery stores and public markets, among others.
“The design will be open source. It will use readily available materials from local hardware stores. Once the design is final, we will send it to all contacts that we have,” the industrial designer, Orlino Pando, wrote.
“All LGUs (local government units) and institutions can use it, free of charge. By adding contacts to our database, you are helping us spread solutions as fast as possible,” he added.
Pando also included the link where people can add any of their contacts in local government so that they could distribute the sanitation tents free of charge.
“By adding contacts to our database, you are helping us spread solutions as fast as possible,” he said.
Pando’s post was also shared by the UP Office of the Student Regent, which encouraged the public to collectively urge LGUs to use and mass-produce the initiative “to further help our fellow Filipinos.”
Social media users began to actively tag the pages of their respective LGUs and Facebook accounts of people who they think can benefit from the sanitation tents.
Some of those tagged include the pages of Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, the city government of Muntinlupa, Las Piñas, San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora, the Marikina Public Information Office, Negros Occidental’s provincial health office and Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla, among others.
Filipinos can visit this link to add their respective LGU contacts.
They can also send an e-mail to covidsanitationtents@gmail.com for concerns and inquiries.
Marikina City previously stepped up its efforts against COVID-19 when it set up disinfection tents and other equipment like the community sanitizing cannon for its local residents.
Marikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro explained that such efforts would immediately test persons under monitoring (PUM) for easier detections.
“Ito ay para agad-agad ma-test natin ang persons under monitoring or PUMs. This will liberate a person after being subject to test. Ito, ang ganda nito. Hindi na siya mag-aalala pa,” he said before.
Vietnam’s similar efforts also gained traction on social media.
Twitter users shared pictures of “sterilization chambers” in the country where the public can disinfect themselves amid the COVID-19 outbreak. It can also “clean” a person’s body for 15 to 20 seconds.