MANILA, Philippines — House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco (Marinduque) said Wednesday that he supports the National Economic Development Authority’s proposal to shift the entire country to the laxest quarantine regime.
Velasco said in a text message to reporters that it is “about time” for the whole country to shift to modified general community quarantine to lessen the pandemic’s impact on the economy.
“With vaccines on the way, we should start encouraging our countrymen to patronize businesses again while strictly adhering to minimum health and safety protocols,” he said.
Currently, most of the Philippines is under MGCQ, while Metro Manila, the Cordillera Administrative Region, Batangas, Tacloban City, Davao City, Davao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Iligan City are under the stricter GCQ until the end of February.
Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kenderick Chua made a pitch to President Rodrigo Duterte for the whole country to shift to MGCQ by March, stressing the need to balance managing the COVID-19 outbreak, hunger and joblessness.
Silver bullet
Tony Leachon, former adviser to the government’s coronavirus task force, agreed that there is a need to balance curbing the spread of COVID-19 and the economy, but underscored the need to roll out vaccines so people would have confidence to go out.
“The government can ‘reopen the economy’ all they want, but if people don’t feel safe going out, they won’t,” Leachon said in a tweet. “Vaccination roll out is the silver bullet.”
The government can "reopen the economy" all they want but if people don't feel safe going out, they won't. Malls have been open already but you don't see people frequenting them. Vaccination roll out is the silver bullet.
— Tony Leachon MD (@DrTonyLeachon) February 17, 2021
House ways and means panel chair Rep. Joey Salceda (Albay) also said in an earlier statement that simply opening up the economy without vaccinations taking place would be futile, as most consumers are likely to stay at home for fear of catching the coronavirus.
“Ultimately, I do not disagree with the proposal to reopen more sectors, but its impact will be very marginal compared to expediting vaccination,” Salceda explained.
Fitch Solutions, a unit of Fitch Group which also assesses creditworthiness, agreed, warning that a slow vaccine rollout can hamper a rebound in household consumption.
There are still no definitive dates as to when the vaccines will arrive or when the government’s vaccination drive against the coronavirus would start, even as government officials continue to tease that the shots are coming soon.
The country is scrambling to finalize deals with various coronavirus vaccine manufacturers as it aims to inoculate 70 million adult Filipinos within the year.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque presented on Tuesday that there are up to 171 million doses of coronavirus vaccines in the “pipeline,” including 17 million doses from British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca and 15 million doses from United States drugmaker Pfizer.
Both drugmakers have received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for their coronavirus vaccines.
Aside from those, Roque said the country will receive 44 million vaccine doses from the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility, 30 million doses from US biotech company Novavax, 25 million doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech, 10 to 15 million doses from Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, 20 million doses from US biotech company Moderna, and five million doses from US healthcare company Johnson and Johnson. — with a report from Ian Nicolas Cigaral