Alert Level 2 to remain in Philippines until Dec. 31
Alert Level 2 will remain throughout the country until December 31, Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles said Wednesday.
During the virtual Palace briefing, Nograles said the continued implementation of alert level was decided in a meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Tuesday.
"The entire country will continue under Alert Level 2 beginning tomorrow, December 16 until December 31, 2021," he said.
"We are fully implementing now the alert level system in the entire Philippines. So we are now looking at the do's and don’ts and guidelines from the alert level system," he added.
Nograles said with Alert Level 2, the government is confident that the health and safety of the people will be secured while the economy is re-opening safely.
"Because we want to keep that way, the decision of the IATF is until December 31, we will remain under Alert Level 2, we will again discuss what is going to happen for January 1 to 15," he said.
Nograles said the IATF decided to maintain the alert level 2 in the country amid the decreasing number of cases to be cautious amid the threat of the Omicron variant.
"Well, we are being very cautious because of the threat of Omicron that we monitor in other countries, territories and jurisdictions with positive Omicron, especially those with local transmission of Omicron, where the number of Covid cases continue to increase," he said.
"We are being cautious, it is good that we are being cautious right now. Anyway, as we see it, the economic numbers are good, the employment numbers are also good, the hunger, poverty numbers have also decreased," he added.
Nograles also explained that the government is not yet confident to declare the alert level one as its parameters are not yet finalized.
"We have many things to know about Omicron, plus we have not yet totally finalized the parameters for Alert Level 1. If we were going to look at the parameters it seems that everything will be open but everybody will continue practicing minimum public standards," he said.
"We are not that confident to open up places for alert level one because we need to still ramp-up our vaccination that is why we have our national vaccination day," he added.
Nograles said the IATF also decided to allow the conduct of the traditional cockfighting under the alert level 2 starting December 16, 2021 subject to the protocols set by the task force and the approval of the local government unit.
Under the protocols only a maximum of 50% venue capacity and only fully vaccinated individuals and on site workers will be allowed and the betting should be cashless.
"Only the technology-based platforms will be allowed, it means there will be no exchange of money and there will be no oral placing of bets in the arena. And the LGUs should be strict in the implementation of the minimum public health standards and technology-based betting, it should be strictly monitored by the Department of the Interior and Local Government," said Nograles.
"We enjoin LGUs that will allow the resumption of cockfighting operations to strictly enforce and implement these protocols and to shut down operators that fail to adhere to our minimum health standards," he added. Robina Asido/DMS
