Majority of the 17 Metro Manila mayors voted to extend the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) until May 31 during the recent Metro Manila Council (MMC) teleconference meeting, an official of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) disclosed Monday.
On Saturday, the MMC, health experts, and MMDA officials held a meeting to discuss their recommendations to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) regarding their next move when the ECQ expires on May 15.
Assistant Secretary Celine Pialago, MMDA spokesperson, said 10 mayors voted in favor of extending the ECQ in Metro Manila.
“Ten out of 17 Metro Manila mayors were in favor to extend the enhanced community quarantine until May 31 because they are considering the health and safety of our countrymen,” she said during the Laging Handa briefing.
Pialago did not reveal the names of the 10 mayors who voted for the extension of the ECQ.
Most of the mayors raised the possibility of the second wave of COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila if they opt to ease the quarantine, she said.
According to her, most of the mayors and health experts find it risky to transition to GCQ or to the new normal wherein some public transportations will be available and some essential establishments will be opened.
“They find it too risky because we are still continuously doing mass testing, contact tracing, transfer of persons under monitoring and persons under investigation, and sanitizing areas,” he said.
Pialago said MMDA General Manager Jose Arturo Garcia presented the scenarios of ECQ, GCQ, and Modified Community Quarantine (MCQ) to the IATF.
The Metro Manila mayors appealed to the IATF to have a single policy and guideline in the National Capital Region (NCR), the MMDA spokesperson said.
“Since NCR po must act as one region, it cannot be like one city is ECQ, the other is GCQ, and the other is MCQ, since the cities here are inter-connected,” she said. (Jel Santos)