Recto to essential offices: Ensure uninterrupted services

Malacanang on Thursday reminded public offices rendering essential services to ensure that their operations would be uninterrupted amid the present challenges caused by the Middle East conflict.

Executive Secretary Ralph Recto said these offices are not covered by the four-day onsite work being implemented to conserve energy. 

“The language of the President’s order is clear: Agencies that provide frontline services shall keep their services running at all times,” Recto said in a press release. 

Recto added that the “overriding rule'' is that “essential, basic and vital services should not be interrupted.'' 

Recto said these agencies are involved in the direct delivery of health, public safety, and emergency response services to the public.

While they will still observe measures to reduce energy use, Recto said, "These should not in any way curtail or compromise the work that they do.”

“We do not cut ambulance service in the name of fuel economy. We do not restrict police response to crime in order to save on gas. Ang ganyang serbisyo ay hindi tinitipid (We don't conserve when it comes to those services),” he said.

Recto said the rationale behind the bureaucracy-wide efforst to cut utility usage “is that savings incurred can be used by offices rendering vital services.”

President Ferdinand ''Bongbong'' Marcos Jr. has already declared a state of national energy emergency on March 24 amid the continuous increase in the prices of oil products. 

The administration has about 45 days of fuel supply as of March 20 and is procuring an additional 1 million barrels of oil for buffer stock.

The President signed Executive Order No. 110 as diesel prices are expected to spike to more than P130 per liter, while gasoline may rise above P100 per liter this week.

The EO directed and authorized the Department of Energy "to take appropriate measures to safeguard the stability and adequacy of the country's energy supply and mitigate the adverse effects of disruptions in global energy supply markets." —VAL, GMA Integrated News