Philippines to further open up economy amid COVID-19 crisis, says Palace

The Philippines will further open up its economy even as measures will continue to be implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Tuesday the recommendations by the economic team were approved on Monday by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the country’s policy-making body on COVID-19 response.

The approved recommendations were as follows:

A. Revisit strategies in combating COVID-19 to ensure that there is balance between health and economy

• To expand testing to include other segments of the population as recommended by the National Task Force to boost confidence of people to go back to work and to restore consumption demand
• To consult with the local government units on the moving up the economy of Region III, Region IV-A and the National Capital Region towards easing of community quarantine status
• To strengthen the mitigating measures on the following: (strictly enforcing public minimum public health standards, ensuring the protection of vulnerable populations, maximizing the test, trace, and isolate and treat infrastructure and using the full support of strategic communications)

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B. Accelerate testing capacity by the end of July 2020 to aid in achieving a positivity rate of 3%

C. Gear towards a more localized quarantine at the municipal or barangay levels once evidence of steady progress towards meeting the targets is observed

D. Optimize the use of sufficient and safe public transportation to facilitate the opening up the economy

“Sa mga armchair analyst na nagsasabi na panay militaristic solutions ‘kuno’ ang alam ng IATF at hindi kasama ang economic managers sa task force, well, fake news po iyan,” Roque said.

“Ang katunayan po, talagang iyong meeting kahapon ay nagpapatunay na napakalaki po ng input ng economic team.”

President Rodrigo Duterte imposed in March strict quarantine measures in Luzon, which accounts for 70% of the Philippines' economic output, to contain the spread of the virus, including sweeping restrictions on travel and mass gatherings and closure of schools and most businesses.

The government started easing restrictions in May in response to calls to partially reopen the economy and following reports of slowing infection rate and improving testing capacity.

The Philippines’ pandemic-hit economy could shrink by 2.0% to 3.4% this year, according to government estimates. The government said it expects the country to recover in 2021, with the economy growing around 7.1% to 8.1%. -NB, GMA News