Mayors want Metro Manila under GCQ until yearend

FILE PHOTO: Passengers wearing face masks and face shields scramble to board a bus, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, September 7, 2020. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez

MANILA, Philippines —  Metro Manila mayors want to keep the general community quarantine (GCQ) over the nation’s capital region until the yearend as threats of COVID-19 persists.

According to Metropolitan Manila Development Authority General Manager Jojo Garcia, member of the Metro Manila Council (MMC) which comprise of the local chief executives of the 17 cities and municipalities in Metro Manila, the mayors are seeking to keep the GCQ status but are eyeing to gradually ease business, travel, and curfew restrictions to help reboot the pandemic-hit economy.

“Actually, iyong ginawa po nating plano diyan is GCQ hanggang end of the year,” Garcia said Monday in a televised Palace press briefing.

(Actually, the plan we made there is GCQ until the end of the year.)

“Kasi parang ang sabi po ng mga mayors natin ay mas madali iyong magluwag unti-unti kaysa MGCQ (modified GCQ) kaagad na one hundred percent saka tayo magbabawas,” he added.

(Our mayors are saying that it is easier to gradually ease restrictions rather than impose MGCQ at once and allow one hundred percent to operate before imposing restrictions.)

Metro Manila, the epicenter of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the country, has been under lockdown since mid-March. The region has been under GCQ since June as the government gradually eased quarantine restrictions.

Garcia said the MMC, for now, is not keen on allowing the reopening of cinemas, concerts, and holding Christmas parties.

KGA