Foreign tourists from countries with relatively low cases of COVID-19 may soon be allowed by the Department of Tourism (DOT) to visit destinations in this Southeast Asian archipelago to revive the tourism sector hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are looking at in the near future, what we call travel bubbles or travel corridors,” Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said Friday, citing some destinations like Bohol, Boracay, and Palawan.
Since most of the country shifted to modified general community quarantine, the government has allowed domestic tourism activities to resume but at 50 percent operating capacity.
The tourism sector, which employs 5.7 million as of 2019, had lost 60 percent of revenue from January to May due to lockdown measures and strict travel restrictions implemented both locally and globally.
Special session
Senate Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri on Friday urged the executive department, particularly the Finance team, to know what they wanted and coordinate with both Houses to come up with a doable compromise.
While he welcomed the call of the executive branch for a possible special session for the passage of the extension of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, he said the Finance team did not recommend its certification at that time.
Senator Panfilo Lacson said before a special session would be called, it would be best for the Executive and Congress to first agree on a mutually acceptable legislative measure to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social and economic problems that beset the country.
‘Responsible critics’
Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano has welcomed “responsible critics and activists” to help solve the problems of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in distributing emergency cash subsidies.
The delay in the distribution is now the subject of an inquiry by the House of Representatives.
“This is activism at its truest and finest form – when we make a difference not by tearing things down, but by finding things to fix and building something better from (sic) it,” Cayetano said.
The joint hearing of the Committees on Good Government and Public Accountability and on Public Accounts started the inquiry on the cash aid distribution Monday.
Testing capacity
A party-list legislator on Friday urged the Department of Health to take decisive steps to address the challenges that prevent the country from reaching its maximum daily testing capacity for COVID-19, currently pegged at 42,000.
“The DOH has reported that as early as June 9, the maximum capacity of all COVID-19 testing laboratories is already more than 42,000. However, it appears that the average actual number of tests done by these laboratories is only less than a quarter of the reported maximum testing capacity at 10,090,” House Deputy Majority Leader and Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera said.
Quoting the DOH website, Herrera said the most number of tests done in one day was 14,517 on June 17. The agency, in one of its most recent reports submitted to Congress, revealed that testing laboratories have only conducted an average of 10,090 tests per day from June 2 to 8.
Job opportunities
The Department of Labor and Employment said thousands of job opportunities were awaiting displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the business process outsourcing industry, construction, and canned goods and battery factories.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said OFW returnees who have background in information technology and healthcare could find jobs in the BPO industry, while thousands of job opportunities in the construction industry under the government’s Build, Build, Build Program were open for OFWs.
The Labor chief said DOLE and the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines collaborated to help the productive reintegration of OFWs and at the same time, fill the demand for additional manpower in the BPO industry.
Migrant workers
A House leader on Friday urged the Senate to prioritize the passage of a bill creating the Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment while proposing an interim overseer to look after migrant workers.
Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte, a lead author of the House-approved consolidated measure, said “the Senate (must) pass as soon as the Congress reopens in July its own version of the DFO that would take full charge of advancing the interests of OFWs in the long haul and providing immediate relief to distressed migrant workers at this critical time when the Covid-19-induced global slump has put them out of work.”
In the absence of the DFO to take care of distressed OFWs, Villafuerte appealed to Malacañang to appoint an interim overseer to take charge of the repatriation efforts and provision of livelihood opportunities in the country for migrant Filipinos who have lost their overseas jobs temporarily or for good as a result of the unprecedented pandemic.