Let LGUs decide on outdoor mask rule – Concepcion
(FILE) People continue to wear face masks as they attend the culmination of the National Service Training Program at the St. Francis of Assisi open grounds in the City of Naga in south Cebu on June 10, a day after Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia lifted the mandatory wearing of masks in open places in the province. —MARY GRACE OBERES
MANILA, Philippines — Local government units (LGUs) should be allowed to decide whether or not to enforce the use of face masks outdoors, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said.
Concepcion made the statement after the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Cebu provincial government clashed over the latter’s decision to make face masks optional in open and well-ventilated spaces.
“To me, I believe a mask mandate outdoors is not necessary, I think we should give it to our LGUs to make that decision,” Concepcion said in an interview over One News’ The Chiefs Wednesday night.
He reiterated that masking outdoors should be made optional.
“Let’s just encourage masks outdoors, let’s not mandate the use of masks outdoors because we know that Omicron is a variant that is quite mild when you get sick and hospitalization are not even there yet and we’re focusing too much on the number of people getting infected daily,” he said.
“It’s like we’re in a microscope and being so paranoid if infection [does] go up and we know very clearly, once you do get Omicron, once you get vaccinated or not, you can still get Omicron, vaccination does not prevent you from getting Omicron at all, what it prevents you is severe infection and death,” he went on.
However, the Department of Health stressed that the government’s pandemic task force only allows taking off face masks during “specific instances” like when eating. This is amid Cebu’s optional mask order in open and well-ventilated areas.
Malacañang, the DILG and the Department of Justice, for their part, maintained that the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases’ rule on the wearing of face masks would prevail over the provincial government’s order.
