Dominguez: Economic managers expect Philippines to achieve Alert Level 1 by ‘onset of New Year’

The Duterte administration’s economic managers are optimistic that the entire Philippines will downgrade to the most lenient COVID-19 alert level by the onset of 2022, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said Wednesday.

In his remarks read by Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran at the 47th Philippine Business Conference and Expo organized by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), Dominguez said his fellow economic managers “expect the country to achieve Alert Level 1, by the onset of the New Year.”

The economic managers are banking on the arrival of an adequate supply of  vaccines and an aggressive COVID-19 inoculation program starting in the third quarter that allowed people to return to work, businesses to continue operating and infections to drop significantly.

Under Alert Level I, all businesses are allowed to operate at full-site capacity, subject to minimum public health standards. 

“We are all looking forward to the new and better normal. Our businesses should prepare to thrive under the terms of this new economy. They must adapt more quickly to the new market realities created by digital technology,” Dominguez said in his remarks read by Beltran.

“This event happens at a more buoyant time. We contained the Delta variant and sustained our economic expansion even as stringent quarantines were in place for certain periods. Our strategy was correct. The results are clear,” the Finance chief said.

Metro Manila will be under Alert Level 2 until November 30.

Under Alert Level 2, establishments will be allowed to operate indoors at 50% capacity with additional 10% capacity if they have a safety seal. For outdoors, they will be allowed at 70%.

Nationwide implementation

President Rodrigo Duterte, last week, approved the nationwide implementation of the Alert Level System for determining restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Under Executive Order 151, the new Alert Level System now in effect in NCR, Region 3, 4A, 6, 7, 10 and 11 will be gradually implemented in Regions 2, 8 and 12 for Phase 2; Regions 2, 5 and 9 for Phase 3; and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Region 4B, Region 13, and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) for Phase 4.

Under IATF guidelines, alert level systems will cover entire cities or municipalities, which will manage and minimize spread of infections.

Each city or municipality will be classified from Alert Level 1 to Alert Level 5. It is the Department of Health that assigns the alert level.

“As the main drivers of wealth and job creation in our economy, I trust our private enterprises are adjusting quickly enough to the rapid changes in our economy. We cannot be slow-footed in keeping up with the challenge,” Dominguez said.

The Finance chief said the country should take full advantage of its demographic sweet spot, in which its workforce is made up mostly of young and talented people ready to swiftly adjust to the transformations taking place in the new economy.

“Even before the pandemic, I have long advocated digital transition both in the public and private sectors. Those agencies that were able to move ahead in this transition were able to deliver more effectively during the period of quarantines,” Dominguez said. — RSJ, GMA News