Reopening of personal care, dine-in ‘very calculated’: DTI

MANILA – Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said Friday allowing limited capacity on personal care services and dine-in in food establishments is a “very calculated” decision from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

This, as the National Capital Region, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal remain under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from May 1 to 14.

Even under MECQ, the IATF has allowed some flexibility in reopening labor-intensive sectors.

The IATF has allowed the reopening of personal care services at 30 percent capacity but only for beauty salons, beauty parlors, barbershops, and nail spas, wherein services would not need the removal of face masks.

The IATF also allowed restaurants and other food establishments to offer dine-in services but only up to 10 percent capacity, while allowing outdoor dining, take-out, and delivery services.

For dine-in services in restaurants, Lopez said they require establishments to have good ventilation.

“Very calculated naman ang ating risk d’yan. Manageable ang risk [We have very calculated risk (with those services). The risk is manageable],” Lopez said in a radio interview.

Lopez, along with other economic managers, has been pushing for balancing the health and the economy amid the pandemic and learning how “to manage and live with the virus”.

Earlier, he estimated that the two-week ECQ resulted in 1.5 million job losses and PHP180 billion gross domestic product (GDP) losses.

The current MECQ, which also lasted for two weeks, shed another PHP120 billion in the economy.

But with the reopening of more sectors during the MECQ, the trade chief said around 500,000 jobs were back in the market.

He added that allowing limited operations of personal care services and dine-in services will bring back another 300,000 jobs.

“Talking to the industry, we consult them, and they said this is better than zero. Some businesses will thrive even with limited operation than zero. But some could not operate at 10 percent operation, so they will wait until we further expand the capacity,” Lopez said in a mix of Filipino and English.