Department of the Interior and Local Government Pampanga Director Myrvi Apostol-Fabia sits down in an interfacing meeting with Mabalacat City Mayor Crisostomo "Cris" Garbo and Vice Mayor Gerald Guttrie Aquino on September 8, 2020 to further discuss for replication the city government's response on COVID-19 crisis.

 PD Fabia said in her message that the Mabalacat's aggressive approaches on the management and mitigation of the adverse effects of the pandemic is worthy of emulation among local government units in Pampanga. The DILG team aims to document and benchmark the good practices of the city, among which is the conduct of free regular swabbing of frontline and health workers every two weeks, continuous capacity training of contact tracers, monitoring of incoming individuals in the city, among others.

Mabalacat Mayor Cris Garbo said during the meeting that "The key to our success in handling COVID lies with our direct cooperation and supervision of the barangays. We motivate by giving incentives and financial subsidy and technical equipment as assistance; we inform by being consistent with our strategic messaging to the constituents and training for our personnel; we provide guidance by being hands-on with the crisis management; and, we impose penalties to health protocol violators with fairness and without special treatment."

PD Fabia then encourages all other local government units in Pampanga to also benchmark on the good practices of Mabalacat City in addressing COVID-19. "We are glad to see that Mabalacat City is one among the LGUs in Pampanga which is triumphant in strategically containing the local spread of the virus, and we wish to replicate these practices across all other LGUs to help the provincial government in keeping every Kapampangan safe and free from the deadly virus," she said.

PD Fabia also took the opportunity to personally award a certificate of recognition to Mayor Garbo and Vice Mayor Aquino for their success in cinching the 1st Place City Category in the recently concluded 2019 Manila Bayani Awards.