Metro Manila lockdown eased to revive battered economy

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the easing of lockdown restrictions in Metro Manila and four surrounding provinces to general community quarantine (GCQ) to further reopen the country’s battered economy despite having the most reported coronavirus infections in Southeast Asia.

The GCQ in the National Capital Region, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal will take effect from Aug. 19 to 31, allowing more businesses to open.

Duterte’s administration has been under intense pressure to revive the economy, which fell into a recession in the second quarter as millions of people lost their jobs.

Most businesses, including shopping malls and dine-in restaurants, and Roman Catholic church services will be allowed to partially resume on Wednesday with restrictions, including masks and social distancing.

Barely surviving

This was after the President approved the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases’ recommendations in a meeting via video-conferencing on Monday night.

“I said, just be careful. Follow the safeguards. I forgot to say this. We want to ensure the safety of our people you know. However, some sectors in our economy, especially the micro, small and medium enterprises, are barely surviving,” Duterte said in a televised address.

“Let us allow them to resume their businesses and have a little money,” he said.

For the past two weeks, the country’s main economic hub and its four neighboring provinces were placed under modified enhanced community quarantine.

This was upon the request of medical organizations and healthcare workers for a “timeout” to recalibrate the health-care system’s response in Metro Manila, the epicenter of the pandemic.

Out of 164,474 COVID-19 cases in the country as of Monday, Metro Manila accounts for 55 percent or 91,934 cases of these cases. The National Capital Region has 27,886 active cases, or 56 percent of the 49,034 active cases.

Metro Manila was first eased into GCQ in June. The surge in cases and the overwhelmed critical care capacity prompted health-care workers to ask that Mega Manila be placed under ECQ earlier this month, a request that was partially granted when the President placed Metro Manila and four provinces under MECQ.

Apart from Metro Manila, this means 15 provinces and cities are under the less restrictive GCQ until the end of the month.

More sectors to reopen

In a statement, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said these are: Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Nueva Ecija, Batangas, Quezon in Luzon; and Iloilo City, Cebu City, Lapu Lapu City, Mandaue City, Talisay City, and the municipalities of Minglanilla and Consolacion in Cebu in the Visayas.

The rest of the Philippines will be under modified GCQ, the most relaxed of community quarantine protocols to curb the pandemic.

During the President’s televised address, Roque, who attended the meeting via video conference, said the GCQ would allow more sectors to resume operations. Limited dine-in operations would be allowed and restrictions on religious services would be relaxed.

“Since we need to reopen the economy, we will also refresh our responses to COVID-19 … We made use of the two-week MECQ to think of how to reboot and refresh our approach. We will do all of these while reopening the economy and ramping up our testing, tracing, isolation and treatment,” Roque said.

He reiterated that the public consistently observe physical distancing, washing of hands, and wearing of face masks and face shields to lessen the transmission of the disease.

—With a report from AP