Expect restrictions to ease in March, says Neda chief

Acting NEDA Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua

MANILA, Philippines — Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua believes the country will be able to relax quarantine restrictions next month after the mass Covid-19 vaccination drive this month.

Chua, also acting director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), said the arrival of the vaccines and the current data would enable the government to better manage the economy by reopening further and safely.

It would be in a better position to relax further after February, Chua said.

“We strongly believe with the data that we are seeing and if everyone cooperates, I think we can further relax after this month,” Chua told a Palace press briefing.

He said the vaccination program would have a big impact as it would improve confidence in the country’s health-care system, given that health-care workers will be among the priority recipients.

This means people will not be afraid to leave their homes because they know the health-care system is there to protect them, he said.

“When confidence increases, that’s where you see the economy coming back,” he said.

He also said people’s compliance with heath measures was crucial to keeping cases down.

“So, if you do all these, it will really open the economy. But if people violate it and have parties or so on without those precautions, then our progress will be wasted,” he said.

The Philippines could not afford a U-turn and revert to stricter quarantine, he said.

Keeping Metro Manila under the current general community quarantine (GCQ) would also put the economy “in a very difficult position,” he added.

P700M lost daily

For every day that Metro Manila and adjacent regions are under GCQ, P700 million in wages, salaries, and other income are lost, he noted.

Chua said the economic managers would conduct the labor force survey monthly instead of quarterly this year so it could keep a closer watch on how many people had lost their jobs or had suffered from reduced income amid the pandemic.

The survey results would be weighed with health data so that economic managers could make recommendations for the reopening of the economy, he said.

“If both of them tell the same story that we can manage like what we saw in October, when the cases were brought down at the same time we opened the economy, then we will make the recommendation. If not, then we will hold back and wait for a better opportunity,” he said.

Meanwhile, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque insisted that the Philippines was not lagging behind in rolling out its vaccination program.

“If we will begin vaccinations in February, it will be almost at the same time as nearly all of our neighbors,” Roque said.

Roque said in Asia, only Singapore, Indonesia, and India have started vaccinating their citizens, and have reached less than 2 percent of their target.

He said Singapore had vaccinated 1.98 percent, India 0.27 percent, and Indonesia 0.19 percent. INQ