Cebu City sets ‘trial period’ for optional mask use outdoors

STILL ON | Pedestrians crossing a street in downtown Cebu City on Monday still wear face masks despite an order from Mayor Michael Rama relaxing the mask mandate in the city. (Photo by NESTLE SEMILLA / Inquirer Visayas)

CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines — The “non-obligatory” wearing of face masks here will stay until the last day of 2022 at the very least.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama on Monday signed Executive Order No. 6, amending last week’s order of relaxing the use of face masks in the city by now setting a time frame, from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31.

“The same period shall be referred to as the trial and observation period,” according to Rama’s spokesperson Karla Henry-Ammann during the flag-raising ceremony at the Cebu City Hall grounds on Monday.

The policy will be lifted automatically should there be a surge in COVID-19 cases in the city, said Henry-Ammann.

As of Sept. 4, the city has 338 active COVID-19 cases.

Rama has earlier ordered that face masks in outdoor places would already be voluntary, except when in medical facilities such as hospitals and clinics. While indoors, Rama left it to the discretion of business establishments and building managers whether or not to require the use of face masks.

Risky decision

Rama’s policy immediately drew concerns from the Department of Health (DOH) officer in charge, Maria Rosario Vergeire, and Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos.

Vergeire warned of a higher risk of infections in an area if the safeguards against COVID-19 are not in place. Abalos, on the other hand, requested Rama to suspend the implementation of his face mask policy to harmonize existing laws and policies in the country, especially amid the pandemic.

But Rama insisted the order would stay, stressing that the Local Government Code gives the city “full autonomy and full decentralization” and that there was no need for him to consult the DOH as under the law, it is the government agencies who should consult the local governments.

Dr. Ted Herbosa, the former medical adviser of the National Task Force Against COVID-19, also believed the mask mandate should remain in place until the number of people with COVID-19 booster shots would go higher, pointing out that countries that removed the mask mandate have booster rates reaching 90 percent.

“I agree with continuing the wearing of masks until we stabilize [the] number of cases, until the level of people with booster shots increases—at least higher than 50 percent—because we’re now only at 24 percent. If we reach 50 percent by the end of December, maybe it can be allowed,” he said during the televised Laging Handa public briefing on Monday.

Rama was not the first local executive in Cebu to ease the face mask policy. In June 2022, Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia made the wearing of masks optional in open spaces in the province. Garcia’s decision caused a squabble between her and national government officials led by then Interior Secretary Eduardo Año.

IATF must decide

Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte on Monday called on the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to decide whether or not it would adopt Cebu City’s relaxed face mask policy.

“It’s about time for our health authorities to seize the bull by its horns, so to speak… It’s probably the right time to reconsider the rigid mask-use protocol as part of national efforts under the ‘new normal’ to speed up our recovery from the pandemic and keep to a minimum our economy’s scarring from the global crisis spawned by COVID-19,” he said in a statement on Monday.

—WITH REPORTS FROM JULIE M. AURELIO AND JEROME ANING 

RELATED STORIES

Cebu City temporarily suspends rule on optional face mask use — DILG

DOH unaware of Cebu City’s ‘trial period’ for optional use of face masks

DILG admits ‘miscommunication’ with Cebu City gov’t on optional mask use policy