The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is pushing for a 100-percent operational capacity of businesses and industries under general community quarantine (GCQ) and modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) to aid economic recovery.
“The only thing that we’d like to change really is the easing up or reopening of more sectors for the workers because I’m just concerned (with) poverty, also (with) hunger, para po may trabaho ang mga kababayan (and for the employment of our countrymen),” DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez stated in the budget hearing at the Senate.
Among the proposed sectors to operate at full capacity are financial services, legal and accounting, management consultancy, architecture, engineering, advertising, science and research development, market research, and computer programming. Also included are publishing, music, film and TV production, recruitment and placement agencies for overseas employment, photography, wholesale, and retail trade.
The Department of Health (DOH) says it sees nothing wrong with the opening of more sectors amid the pandemic “if only people would comply strictly” with behavior changes that they “would want for them to have.”
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire explained that the country cannot live with the continuous lockdown.
“Sinasabi na rin po ‘yan ng eksperto. There would come a time na talagang somehow, slow opening of different sectors has to be done para magtuloy-tuloy ang buhay natin (Experts have already explained that. There would come a time when slow opening of different sectors has to be done to continue living),” Vergeire stated.
The DTI assured anew that minimum health standards will be strictly implemented in establishments to prevent further transmission of COVID-19. As of Sept. 30, there are 311,694 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 253,488 recoveries and 5,504 fatalities nationwide. – Report from Mark Fetalco
