Gov’t balancing ‘targeted lockdowns’ while rebuilding economy

FILE: Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. cites the importance of peace education in the nation’s fight against violent extremism, communist insurgency during a peace forum held Oct. 23 at the San Beda University in Manila. (Photo courtesy of OPPAP via PIA)

MANILA – The second phase of the government’s National Action Plan (NAP) to combat the coronavirus pandemic focuses on balancing Filipinos’ health and the gradual reboot of the economy, National Action Plan (NAP) on Covid-19 chief implementer, Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr., said Wednesday.

“NAP Phase II is based on the “hammer and dance” theory wherein the government shall continue to contain the spread of the virus through its zoning containment strategy or targeted lockdowns, while slowly rebuilding the economy,” he said during the pre-State of the Nation Address (SONA) forum live-streamed via PCOO Facebook page.

Galvez, also the presidential peace adviser, said given the implementation of lockdowns for more than 100 days due to the pandemic which grounded economic activities to a halt, there is a need to rebuild and recover the country’s economy.

Galvez said local government units (LGUs) were tasked to impose “granular targeted lockdowns,” if necessary, to further contain the transmission of the dreaded virus within their areas.

“Ito po ay ginagawa po natin para magkaroon po ng immediate response para po ang mga lugar na nagkakaroon ng new [Covid-19] cases ay atin pong agad na maagaapan (We are doing this so that we can provide an immediate response to areas with new Covid-19 cases),” he said, noting that the national government is also counting on mayors and barangay officials when it comes to the imposition of the health protocols and measures against Covid-19.

“We will also continue to strictly implement health and safety standards across all quarantine classifications particularly also sa ating mga (to those) private sectors and workers,” he said.

Galvez meanwhile said the government is also strengthening the expansion of the country’s actual testing capacity.

He said the government has established expanded testing protocols “so that we can test as much as 10 percent of our people”.

“We already have more or less 10 million testing kits available for that, and we are now increasing our testing capacity to more than 50,000 and we were able to test 27,000 a day,” he said.

Galvez urged the public to keep safe against the risks of Covid-19 infections.

“Protecting one’s health is more like protecting our livelihoods and the economy,” said Galvez.