Issues EO effective nationwide but tells public to keep health protocols
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday made wearing face masks voluntary in outdoor settings but encouraged the public to follow health protocols to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said the President accepted the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to no longer make wearing masks mandatory outdoors.
The new policy, contained in Executive Order No. 3, will take effect immediately, Angeles said.
She added, however, that immunocompromised persons, senior citizens, and people not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are “strongly encouraged” to continue wearing face masks.
The Palace said the Department of Health (DOH) has been told to update the minimum public health and safety guidelines to reflect EO No. 3.
The DOH also agreed to lift masking for non-vulnerable sectors and low-risk settings, officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire revealed Monday.
Vergeire said during the Health Department’s budget briefing at the House Appropriations Committee that the DOH made their decision based on the World Health Organization’s pronouncement that face mask mandates can be focused on the vulnerable sector.
But the Palace, through Angeles, said: “Face masks shall continue to be worn in indoor, private or public establishments, including in public transportation by land, air or sea and in outdoor settings where physical distancing cannot be maintained.”
The order comes after Negros Occidental on Sunday allowed face masks as optional in outdoor spaces, following in the footsteps of Cebu province—which was the first to defy the national mask mandate to guard against the spread of COVID-19—Cebu City, and Iloilo province.
More local government units are expected to follow suit with their own orders, as the Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19 had also recommended to Mr. Marcos to allow people to go maskless outdoors.
While supporting the President’s order, the independent monitoring group OCTA Research said it hopes the government will put in place a “set of triggers” to reimpose the mask policy.
“In OCTA we believe that any change in policy should be grounded in science and based on ensuring public health and safety for all,” it said in a statement.
“To this end, OCTA has suggested to the government through channels that a set of milestones to be achieved first as a prerequisite to the lifting of the outdoor mask mandate such as increasing booster rates, etc. as well as defining a set of triggers to reimpose the use of masks outdoors should a serious surge in cases happen,” the group said.
“We hope the government can still consider these in the implementation of its new policy,” it added.
At the same time, the Palace said the country is now 6 percent away from having a “wall of immunity” from vaccination.
Angeles also said the government is extending the COVID-19 state of calamity for three months. She said the country will “transition out of the state of calamity” after further review.
The new order makes the Philippines the tenth country in Southeast Asia to end the mandatory wearing of face masks outdoors, leaving only Myanmar as the only country in the region to still require face coverings.
But EO3 has caused some health experts to raise their brows, as COVID-19 cases in the country continue to rise.
Dr. Maricar Limpin, the immediate past president of the Philippine College of Physicians, expressed her dismay in an interview with DZMM Teleradyo, citing vaccine and case statistics as the reason for the country’s unpreparedness to face the challenges of the virus amid the new policy.
“The biggest factor here is the low rates of booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. We know that we only have about 23% of the target population that has been given booster shots,” she said.
Wearing a face mask also protects against other communicable diseases and not just COVID-19, a health expert said Monday.
In a televised public briefing, Philippine Foundation for Vaccination Executive Director Dr. Lulu Bravo echoed the advice of Vergeire to wear masks whether it is required or not.
“Even if it is not COVID-19, you can have symptoms like cough, colds, and pneumonia,” Bravo said.
Limpin said the administration only based their studies on the targeted primary vaccine rollout rather than the distribution of booster doses, “which are now more crucial,” adding it only “sought to expose those vulnerable in society.”
“It may be that a certain individual manages to avoid being infected by the virus, but it is certain that people in their households that are vulnerable—like immunocompromised individuals and senior citizens—may contract the virus that may eventually lead to their death,” she said.
“We should not compare our policies with that of other countries because you cannot compare an apple with an orange,” the doctor added.
Reacting to the new policy, Senator Risa Hontiveros said the public should not forget that the economy can now reopen thanks partially to the protection of masks.
She noted that EO No. 3 just institutionalized what most Filipinos are already doing.
“Nothing has changed. The virus is not any less serious or dangerous just because we’ve decided that masks are optional,” she said.
She also reminded the public not to be lulled into a false sense of security.
“I urge the public to get vaccinated and boosted and be mindful of wearing our mask at all times, especially indoors, in public transportation, and especially, in crowded places,” she said.
Senator Christopher Go, who chairs the Senate committee on health, echoed the views of Hontiveros, adding that the public should strongly adhere to minimum health protocols.
He said he believes the DOH and the IATF have studied the consequences of their recommendation before Malacanang issued EO No. 3.
Like Hontiveros, Go said the public should not be too confident, as the times are still dangerous.
“We will lose nothing if we put on our face masks,” he said. With Gabriellea Parino and Marron Joshua Mendoza
