Manila likely to approve other med schools’ F2F classes requests

MANILA – The city government of Manila is likely to approve requests of schools offering medical or allied health courses that seek permission to hold limited face-to-face classes.

In an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel on Friday, Mayor Francisco ‘Isko Moreno’ Domagoso said he trusts that medical schools know what they have to do amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

“We welcome, CEU [Centro Escolar University], EAC [Emilio Aguinaldo College], FEU [Far Eastern University], o yung iba pa na may medical school malamang sa hindi papayagan namin (or other schools that have allied medical health courses, most probably we will allow them),” Domagoso said.

Earlier this week, Domagoso gave the greenlight for the University of Santo Tomas (UST) to hold limited face-to-face classes for its allied medical and health courses amid the health crisis.

Currently, only UST has applied for the holding of physical classes for their medical and health courses.

“I think UST can be a very good parang na simbolo paano mapag aralan unti unti lalo na yung medical school, yung face to face (UST can be a very good symbol or test so we can study how to slowly go back and hold face-to-face classes especially for medical schools),” Domagoso said.

However, he told UST officials not to force any student who will refuse to attend physical classes.

Domagoso showed UST contingency plans that were presented to him in case a student, faculty, or staff member starts to have Covid-19 symptoms.

Domagoso said that he may allow other schools that will apply for limited face-to-face classes as long as they can give assurance that the guidelines issued by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) will be followed.

“We will allow them kung papayagan ang lokal na pamahalaan na regularly or randomly na bisitahin namin sila for inspection kasi yun naman ang importante na mabantayan namin sila kung sumusunod (if they will allow the local government to regularly or randomly visit them for inspection so we can monitor if they are complying with the guidelines),” Domagoso said.