Rising incidents of hunger prompted the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) to recommend placing the entire country under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) by next month.
During the public address of President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Monday, NEDA acting secretary Karl Kendrick Chua made the recommendation to allow more businesses to resume their operations.
He noted the stringent quarantine measures implemented by the government since the local onset of the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic last March caused the shutdown of many establishments causing a total of P1.04 trillion income loss in 2020.
“So an average of 2.8 billion pesos worth of wages was lost daily. On average, the annual income loss for workers is at P23,000 per worker,” Chua said.
Citing survey results conducted by Pulse Asia, the country’s chief economist these income loses caused hunger rate to spike from 39 percent last Sept. to 73 percent by Nov. 2020.
To address this, Chua recommends the implementation of localized lockdown in the barangay or in municipal level to stop the spread of infection.
He also urged increasing the allowable passenger capacity of public transportation from 50 percent to 75 percent to allow people to go back to work. The proposal includes increasing provincial buses and bike lanes.
NEDA also said local government units, particularly in the National Capital Region (NCR) should consider gradually adjusting the age group, which are allowed to go out of their homes during the pandemic from 15 to 65, to 5 to 70.
“This could be done in the increments of 5 years and also with the appropriate safeguards such children being required to accompanied by their parents when going out in open [air] areas,” Chua said.
He reiterated the importance of relaxing the community quarantine classification in the entire country, particularly NCR, where 60 percent of economic activity of the country is based, to arrest the growing hunger rate, poverty and income loss arising from the pandemic.
As of this month, areas under GCQ include the NCR and Davao City.
Other areas placed under GCQ until the end of Feb. were Batangas and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), which includes Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Baguio City, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Mountain Province for Luzon; Tacloban City for the Visayas; Davao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Iligan City for Mindanao.
The rest of the country is already under MGCQ.
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