OVER a hundred manufacturing companies have prodded the government to further ease quarantine restrictions on all main economic centers in the country while strictly observing health and safety protocols, following a standstill in economic activity that stretched more than three months.
This, despite the rising number of cases in the country, which breached 72,000 as of Wednesday.
In a letter to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI)—the umbrella organization of over 100 manufacturing companies—backed the call of Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III to loosen quarantine restrictions in Metro Manila and Calabarzon as soon as possible while implementing the necessary health precautions, adding that this will help sustain economic recovery.
“The federation is supporting the call of Secretary Carlos Dominguez III that the country’s main economic centers like Metro Manila, Calabarzon and other urban areas should move to looser quarantine restrictions as soon as possible to reopen the economy, with the precaution that those factories and barangays with Covid-19 cases be dealt with more strictly,” said the FPI letter, a copy of which was sent to Dominguez’s office.
Metro Manila and the provinces of Laguna, Cavite and Rizal remain under general community quarantine (GCQ), while Batangas and Quezon are under modified GCQ until July 31.
Represented by its chairman Jesus Arranza, FPI said the lockdowns “affected 75 percent of the economy, shrank gross domestic product by 0.2 percent in the first quarter and its extension starting April resulted in a 15-year-high unemployment rate.”
“FPI fully agrees with Secretary Dominguez that there are already signs of economic recovery when the quarantine restrictions were relaxed starting this June 2020 as import volumes improve, reflecting rising economic activity. Hence, there is a need now to further loosen the quarantine restrictions in all main economic centers,” the FPI said in its letter.
Moreover, it also recommended that the IATF-EID should start allowing the use of road-worthy public utility jeepneys (PUJs) as these are “much safer than airconditioned versions in reducing the viral load during transport, with a caveat that both the drivers and passengers wear masks, in addition to [following] other health safety measures.”
This, FPI said, “is very critical because the ordinary workers could not report for work since this [mode of] transportation is not available particularly in the economic centers.”
Aside from this, the alliance also requested that government ease movement restrictions in the countryside to help revive the agriculture and forestry enterprises, “which are hardly affected by Covid-19 due to the open space and low viral loads.”
More often than not, the FPI said these enterprises supply the companies in the economic centers, it added.
To promote the preferential use of Filipino labor, domestic materials and locally produced goods not only among consumers, but also in the state’s procurement of supplies and materials as part of the country’s economic stimulus plan, it also urged the government to strictly implement Commonwealth Act 138 and Administrative Order (AO) 227.
“The local manufacturers have regularly paid their taxes and duties to the government; thus, it is about right to give them also the necessary reciprocity by patronizing and procuring their products and materials with the money that they contributed in the first place to the State,” the FPI said.
“Verily, this is now the time not only for our citizens, but for the government as well, to be patriotic—by patronizing locally made products and boost our economy,” it added.
The FPI, which includes the country’s leading manufacturing firms, counts as members the producers of various commodities such as agricultural and food products (rice, flour, sugar, ice cream, confectionery, beverages and wines, broilers, hogs, coconut and palm oil, oleo chemicals, seeds and feeds); petroleum and petrochemical products; steel, cement, and other construction materials; packaging and paper products, textiles and garments; firearms; cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles; rubber; spare parts; medicine; fertilizers; tobacco and cigarettes; and power and energy, among others.
2 comments