FILE PHOTO: A devotee of the Black Nazarene raises his hands to the air as the Holy Mass for the feast was ongoing at the Quiapo Church. (Photo by Cathrine Gonzales/INQUIRER.net)
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has reminded religious denominations and their followers to forego all impending festivities to avoid COVID-19 transmissions.
Duterte made this remark during his pre-recorded Talk to the People on Thursday night, as the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) said that Metro Manila and nearby provinces or “NCR Plus bubble” would revert to general community quarantine (GCQ) from May 15-31.
“Sinasabi ko lang na Mayo, maraming piyesta, but I think I’ll be more direct that what is written here: I do not attribute it to any particular religion or what, but there are many feasts because predominantly Catholic country ito, so ang hinihingi ko is that you only not tone down, but forego kasi may batas,” Duterte said.
According to Duterte, people should keep in mind that the pandemic is still raging, saying that God would understand if the faithful would postpone holding celebrations for now. He assured though, that violations of quarantine protocols would be penalized and that barangay officials would be held liable.
“Forego to congregate, to crowd, and to hold. Eh walang problema, alam ng Diyos na love natin siya pero ang problema, the necessary consequences of it all. Be mindful of that because we are still in the pandemic, and there is no way of knowing how long this would last on this planet,” the Chief Executive explained.
“I will not allow the violations of the guidelines given by the task force, and I will hold the local governments down to the last barangay level, and therefore it would only be the barangay captains, I will hold you responsible for any violation sa itong mga batas na hindi natutupad,” he added.
Earlier, the IATF said that Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal would be placed under GCQ but “with heightened restrictions” from May 15-31. This means certain businesses would be allowed to operate on small scale but travel into and outside the bubble is still disallowed.
The toned-down quarantine classification comes as the country saw a continuous decrease in active COVID-19 cases after the National Capital Region (NCR) bubble suffered a resurgence in late March.
The surge, which saw active case count rise to over 200,000 at one point, was attributed to the new COVID-19 variants of concern.
Duterte reminded barangay officials that the quarantine regulations are actual laws that must be implemented.
“Batas to, it is really a law, so you have to enforce it because if you want this country to recover from the onslaught of COVID-19, we have to be mindful of what is going on and how to prevent it,” the President said.
“Just the same, mask, hugas, iwas. Kung wala ka naman talagang lakad ngayon sa labas wag ka nang (lumabas). (If) you go out, you just go hunting for those virus to enter your body, and pass it on, that is a problem,” he added. “So nakikiusap ako, I said there are a lot of fiestas which you would like to hold, the problem is there is also the consequence which we must be mindful of.”
As of Thursday, the country’s active COVID-19 case count rose slightly to 55,260 due to 6,385 new infections. However, this is still far from the numbers back in April, where the country saw over 10,000 cases per day.
Numbers from the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday, May 13, showed that only 4,289 recoveries were tallied, for a total recovery count of 1,050,643. Another 107 fatalities pushed the death toll to 18,821.
All in all, the country has 1,124,724 confirmed COVID-19 cases.