JAKARTA -- President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. will have to weigh the opinions of various government agencies when it comes to the face mask policy, Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said on Sunday.
At a press conference before the President's meeting with the Filipino community at Fairmont Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, Cruz-Angeles was asked if Marcos will give a statement on the mandatory use of face masks.
"Primarily, this is a matter for the DOH and it will be the DOH who will primarily advise the President on health matters. That being said, we will also have to wait because right now, although the issue is ranging, there is intervention by the SILG [Secretary of the Interior and Local Government] and he has asked Cebu to kindly defer their plan," Cruz-Angeles said.
"I understand that there is response that they will not defer. So we will wait first for further action on the part of the Department of the Interior [and Local Government], and so all of that will be taken into consideration by the President," she added.
"For now, we will wait for a definitive statement. The President is, what we can say is he values the opinion of the DOH but he will likewise listen to everybody," Cruz-Angeles said.
Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama earlier signed an executive order on the optional use of face masks outdoors in Cebu's capital.
Earlier, the DOH said the number of COVID-19 cases in the country must stabilize first before the national government can lift the mandatory face mask policy.
DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire had emphasized that COVID-19 is not yet in its endemic stage in the country.
"When we talk about endemic stage, ang ibig sabihin niyan ang mga kaso ay stable na at pangalawa mataas ang immunity ng population [that means first, cases are stable and second, the population has a high immunity level]," Vergeire said. -- BM, GMA News
No comments:
Post a Comment