MANILA – The Department of Health (DOH) has asked President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to keep the country under a “state of calamity” in relation to the pandemic until the end of 2023, as the current status is set to elapse on Dec. 31.
If approved, it will be the fourth extension of the declaration first made by Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
DOH officer in charge Maria Rosario Vergeire on Tuesday said her agency submitted to the Presidential Management Staff, during a Cabinet meeting on Friday, a memo making the recommendation.
“So we’re just waiting for the official response from the Office of the President in terms of this memo we have submitted to them,” she said in a press briefing.
Vergeire noted that the Senate, before Congress went on recess on Dec. 17, had not acted on House Bill No. 6522, which was transmitted to that chamber on Dec. 12.
The bill, a priority measure of the administration, proposes the creation of a new agency, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as the oversight body on the coronavirus pandemic.
In an earlier briefing, Vergeire said “the [proposed] CDC law states the conditions needed for our COVID-19 response to continue.”
She explained on Tuesday that without that new law, the only basis for the government’s vaccination drive, the emergency use authorization issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the disbursement of benefits to health workers would be the state of calamity.
‘Implications’
Duterte first declared a state of calamity in March 2020 through Proclamation No. 929 at the onset of pandemic in the country. It has been renewed twice, in September that year and in the same month the following year.
In September this year, Marcos issued Proclamation No. 57 to maintain the status but only until Dec. 31.
“Now, what are the implications if the state of calamity will not be extended? We’ll be losing the different response strategies that we are doing right now,” Vergeire said.
She stressed that the vaccination program in particular was “anchored on the state of calamity.”
Bivalent jabs
Also on Tuesday, Vergeire said the FDA already issued last week an authorization for the bivalent jabs of vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna.
The doses were developed to target not only the original COVID-19 strain but particularly the Omicron variant and its subvariants.
Earlier she said the DOH had been in talks with manufacturers and was expecting the first deliveries to arrive in the country in the first quarter of 2023. (Kathleen de Villa © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
