Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana ordered newly installed Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay on Monday to undertake a headcount of military reservists with health and medical backgrounds for possible drafting into active service in the fight to control the spread of Covid-19.
“I have already directed the chief of staff, general headquarters, to find out who are those that can be called to active duty. Now, once we identify these [reservists], we will make the recommendation to the President to call them to active duty,” Lorenzana said, noting that the mobilization of the reservists needs the approval of President Duterte because it may entail funding.
The defense chief, however, clarified that reservists with medical backgrounds who are already serving in medical facilities, or in the overall government effort to contain the contagion, are exempted from being called into active duty.
Lorenzana said the idea of tapping the services of reservists was raised by the President himself when he called him on Sunday night. In that meeting, Lorenzana said he was specifically instructed to beef up the ranks of medical frontliners by mobilizing the reservists.
“Last night, I was directed by the President to mobilize our medical reservists. He was thinking actually of mobilizing all reservists but I told him that what we only need are medical reservists. It will be good if we can bring them to active service so that they can help in the fight against Covid,” he said.
Lorenzana said that those who will be called into active service would include doctors, nurses and others whose backgrounds are both in the health and medical fields.
“At present, we have 380 medical officers as reservists, they are all outside, and 5,368 enlisted personnel who have medical training,” he said.
The defense chief said they would improve military hospitals so that they could serve as backup hospitals for Covid-19 patients once hospitals and other medical facilities around the country would reach full capacity.
President Duterte has placed Metro Manila and surrounding provinces under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from August 4 to 18, 2020 amid an unabated rise of Covid infection.
The President’s order followed the recommendation of doctors and other medical professionals for the government to reimpose ECQ, particularly in Metro Manila, still due to the alarming rise of cases.