By Fernan Angeles
The coronavirus caught up on San Mateo, Rizal town mayor and her husband who is the vice mayor of the locality. With both the mayor and her vice-mayor forced to go on medical leave, the municipal administrator now calls shots for the local government.
In their official Facebook accounts, Mayor Cristina Diaz issued a memorandum designating Municipal Administrator Ricardo R. Gomez the alternate signatory to all official local government transactions.
The memorandum was addressed to municipal officials and employees.
In a separate social media post using his personal Facebook account, Vice Mayor Jose Rafael Diaz, the mayor’s husband, also revealed that he and his wife have already been undergone COVID-19 test, results of which he said, yielded positive.
Both underwent a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test on Aug. 18, results of which was revealed two days after.
Vice Mayor Diaz, who claims to have felt mild symptoms, said that he could have contracted the virus from her mayor-wife whom he surmised could have unknowingly been infected while making personal rounds in areas under localized lockdown protocol.
Aside from him, the mayor, it was learned, also had contact with medical frontliners.
On August 17, Mayor Diaz hinted at taking a COVID-19 test on recommendation of Rizal Governor Rebecca Ynares. The provincial chief executive, along with the San Mateo mayor and 13 other local chief executives met Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año at an event in the Rizal Provincial Capitol in Antipolo City on Aug. 12.
Año tested positive in the swab test few days after the Antipolo event.