The restrictions placed on the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus area must be eased to a less stricter level by the middle or by the end of May so that the country can still be on track in its recovery and in achieving the growth target for the year.
Karl Kendrick Chua, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) secretary, said in an interview with ANC yesterday the Development Budget and Coordination Committee has a projected growth target of 6.5 to 7.5 percent for the year.
When asked if that can still be reached if the NCR and the four adjacent provinces remain in modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) for the rest of the year, Chua said:
“No. We have to move out of MECQ by middle or the end of the month, we cannot be in MECQ for the entire year.”
“ We have to use these two months very wisely that we are in this bubble to enhance our prevent, detect, isolate, treat and recover strategy, so we can open the economy as soon as we can,” Chua said.
NCR, Cavite, Rizal, Laguna and Bulacan remains under MECQ until May 14.
“We have to move out of MECQ, we have to go to GCQ (general community quarantine) and even better… 95 percent is our own personal behavior and everyone knows what to do: wash hands, wear mask and shield when you go out, and go out only to work or buy essentials. All of us will have to cooperate to make this happen. It’s not a magic solution that government or someone can just deliver,” Chua said.
Chua said NEDA is contributing to one of the strategies, which is to provide automated contact tracing and cut down the process from detection to isolation from 7 days to 5.5 days and reduce cases by more than half, referring to the national StaySafe PH app which it had recommended to the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases to scale it up.
On the economic recovery package, Chua said the main constraint right now is on how to accelerate the implementation.
“We are operating on three budgets: we have the 2021 budget, we have the 2020 budget that wasn’t fully used last year, and then we have the Bayanihan 2, which is extended until June. The problem is not that we have don’t have sufficient resources, the constraint is more on getting things done faster,” Chua said. (A. Celis)
