Agenda aims to speed up, sustain PH revival efforts from COVID
President Rodrigo Duterte has adopted a 10-point policy agenda aimed at speeding up and sustaining the country’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 10-point agenda is detailed in Executive Order No. 166, which was released to the public on Wednesday.
It calls for the country to: Strengthen health care capacity; Accelerate and expand the vaccination program; Further reopen the economy and expand public transport capacity; Resume face-to-face learning; Reduce restrictions on domestic travel and standardize local government unit (LGU) requirements; Relax requirements for international travel; Accelerate digital transformation through legislative measures; Provide for enhanced and flexible emergency measures through legislation; Shift the focus of decision-making and government reporting to more useful and empowering metrics, and Prepare in the medium term for pandemic resilience.
All government departments, bureaus, offices, agencies, and instrumentalities, including government-owned or -controlled corporations and state universities and colleges, are mandated to ensure that all related policies, measures, and programs are aligned with the adopted policy agenda.
All government departments and offices must also formulate and propose legislation to ensure the implementation of “enhanced and flexible” emergency measures during pandemics.
EO 166 also orders the shift to “more useful and empowering metrics,” taking into consideration the total severe or critical cases, case fatality ratio, and total vaccinations to avoid unnecessary changes in alert levels and encourage more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The national government is also directed to prepare medium-term solutions to ensure the country’s resilience against future pandemics.
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) will monitor the compliance of concerned agencies and periodically report to the President.
Citing data from NEDA, the EO states that at the height of the pandemic in 2020, 10.1 percent of businesses temporarily closed while 0.4 percent permanently ceased operations, causing unemployment to swell to around 8.7 million.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has impeded the country’s three decades of uninterrupted growth, contracting its gross domestic product by as much as -9.6 percent in 2020,” the EO reads.
The Philippines on Tuesday recorded 290 new COVID-19 cases, the lowest recorded daily tally this year.
This brings the nationwide total cases to 3,674,983.
According to the Department of Health (DOH) website, the new infections brought the country’s active case count to 44,764. This was the lowest number of active cases since Jan. 5.
Among the top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 1,948, followed by Region 4-A with 899 and Region 6 with 671.
The number of recoveries rose to 3,571,938, while the country’s death toll climbed to 58,281.
Based on the latest data, at least 24.64 percent of the intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide are in use.
At least 22.04 percent of isolation beds in the country were utilized, while 13.66 percent of ward beds nationwide were in use.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said a positivity rate of 2.7 percent was recorded this week. This is better than the 5 percent threshold set by the World Health Organization
Also on Wednesday, Vergeire said there has been no uptick in COVID-19 cases despite the start of the campaign period for the May elections.
She expressed concern, however, that campaign rallies and gatherings might cause the transmission of the virus and become superspreader events.
Vergeire reminded the public to observe minimum health protocols and get vaccinated to prevent spread of the viral disease.
Also on Wednesday, the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases approved the acceptance and recognition of the national COVID-19 vaccination certificates of Bulgaria, Iran and Panama, for purposes of arrival quarantine protocols, as well as for interzonal and intrazonal movement.
This is in addition to other countries whose proof of vaccination the IATF has already approved for recognition in the Philippines, and without prejudice to such other proofs of vaccination approved by the IATF for all inbound travelers.
The IATF directed the Bureau of Quarantine, the Department of Transportation – One-Stop-Shop, and the Bureau of Immigration to recognize only the proof of vaccination approved by the IATF.
So far, the country is recognizing the vaccination certificates as sufficient proof of vaccination of 72 countries, territories, or jurisdictions: Albania; Argentina; Armenia; Australia; Austria; Azerbaijan; Bahrain; Belgium; Brazil; British Virgin Islands; Brunei Darussalam; Bulgaria; Cambodia; Canada; Chile; Colombia; Croatia; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Denmark; Ecuador; Egypt; Estonia; France; Georgia; Germany; Greece; Hong Kong; India; Indonesia; Iran; Iraq; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Japan; Kazakhstan; Kuwait; Macau; Malaysia; Maldives; Malta; Monaco; Myanmar; New Zealand; Nepal; Oman; Palau; Panama; Papua New Guinea; Peru; Portugal; Qatar; Romania; Samoa; Singapore; Slovenia; South Korea; Spain; Sri Lanka; Switzerland; Syria; Thailand; The Netherlands; Timor-Leste; Tunisia; Turkey; United Arab Emirates; United Kingdom; United States of America; Uruguay and Vietnam.
The Philippines reopened its doors to fully vaccinated foreign tourists from non-visa countries on Feb. 10, 2022.