Bizmen can join IATF as 'resource persons' — Palace
MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang on Friday invited businessmen to become "resource persons" in crafting policies meant to control the spread of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) in the country, but fell short of giving them a seat in the virus task force.
The Palace issued the statement in response to a request from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the largest business organization in the country, for private sector representation in the COVID-19 Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) so businesses can weigh in on policies that affect their operations.
"The IATF welcomes any group, organization, or individual, outside the members of the IATF, to join the discussion of any of its meetings," presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement.
"Officials of the PCCI can therefore serve as resource persons on matters related to trade, business and the economy," Roque added.
In a statement on Thursday, the PCCI flagged some of the policies implemented by the IATF that they said could heavily weigh on business operations, including the government's "apprehensiveness" to fully reopen the economy and "stringent regulation" on public transportation that limits the mobility of workers.
The PCCI likewise complained about the enforcement of "impractical standards" that must be adopted in workplace settings that they said could eat up the "already meager revenue" of companies.
"For instance, mandating the use of face shields for workers, the observance of 2-meter physical distancing and the designation of an isolation area of one room for every 200 employees, is simply not realistic in a production-line setting,” PCCI President Benedicto Yujuico said.
“We are appealing for the inclusion the private sector in the IATF. The IATF will be able to use the on-the-ground experience of the business sector to come up with a holistic approach that will make it easier for businesses to resume operation and for workers to return to work,” Yujuico added.
As it is, the economic team composed of the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Finance, the Department of Budget and Management and the National Economic and Development Authority are members of the IATF.
On the face of a renewed surge of coronavirus cases, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, together with the rest of economic managers, have warned the IATF against a return to stringent lockdowns in Metro Manila and Calabarzon, areas he had said accounted for around 70% of economic output.
But the economic team was recently trumped by health workers' call for a "timeout", which prompted the government to re-impose tough stay-home orders in the capital and four nearby provinces for two weeks in August, a move that could derail the nascent economic recovery that Dominguez had seen since June.
"We acknowledge the hard work the IATF is doing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We understand the precarious situation of our medical workers and frontliners," PCCI's Yujuico said.
"But we also need to stress that the longer our economy stays in its current state where businesses cannot function 100%, nor even up to 75%, the more protracted the recession that will follow and the more people will be permanently out of jobs,” he added.
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