Palace defends gov’t decision allowing minors to visit malls

Malacañang on Tuesday defended the government’s decision to allow minors to visit malls as the Philippines sought to revive the economy while trying to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said local government units would issue guidelines to ensure that children will not become “super-spreaders” of the virus.

“Kaya nga po ang isang basic requirement [ay] dapat kasama nila ang kanilang mga magulang,” Roque said at a news conference. 

Joint Task Force COVID Shield commander Police Lieutenant General Cesar Hawthorne Binag also clarified on Tuesday that local ordinances are still needed in allowing minors to visit malls in this period of quarantine.

Roque admitted that the Philippines had imposed stringent movement curbs that affected many businesses. 

“It’s really to invite families to visit the malls again dahil ngayon po talaga maski tayo nagluwag na, maluluwag po talaga ang mga malls. Talagang hindi po lumalabas pa rin ang ating mga kababayan,” he said.

“Tayo talaga 'yung naging super restrictive pagdating sa movement, kaya po binubuksan na po," Roque added.

US-based company Bloomberg has ranked the Philippines 46th out of 53 countries based on 10 key metrics, including increase in cases, mortality rate, healthcare system capacity, lockdown impact, community mobility, and agreements on vaccine supply. 

According to Bloomberg, the Philippines scored poorly when it came to community mobility—the "movement of people to offices and retail spaces compared to a pre-pandemic baseline in the past month"—with a -39.4% score. 

Roque, however, said the Philippines had managed the COVID-19 situation “very well,” citing government measures that resulted in a relatively low mortality rate for COVID-19 and a small percentage of severe and critical cases. 

The Philippines’ tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases rose to 431,630 on Monday after the Department of Health announced 1,773 new infections.

The total number of recoveries also rose to 398,658 after 44 more patients recovered from the respiratory disease.

The death toll also climbed to 8,392 with 19 new fatalities. —KG, GMA News