The Manila office of the Radio Television Malacañang (RTVM) will temporarily close down after two of its personnel tested positive for COVID-19.
In an advisory, the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) its broadcast media arm RTVM will be closed from July 28 to August 11 to give way for office decontamination and sanitation, contact-tracing, and conduct of confirmatory tests relative to the control and management of the disease.
During this period, the PCOO said that only select personnel will be allowed to cover Presidential coverages, while support to non-Presidential coverages will only be done remotely or virtually.
Other employees identified to be primary contacts of the confirmed cases are scheduled to undergo necessary swab testing and will be on mandatory self-quarantine.
The rest of RTVM's workforce will be on a work-from-home arrangement.
In effect, the PCOO said that no documents shall be received and/or released in RTVM's Manila office and no other coverage requests and/or transactions shall be entertained during the entirety of the 14-day closure.
The PCOO said that two RTVM personnel tested positive for COVID-19 last week. This prompted the PCOO to deploy a new team to cover President Duterte's State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa on Monday.
The RTVM is the only media group allowed to cover the SONA. Private media entities were advised to hook up to RTVM's feed and/or to monitor the event via the PCOO's social media pages.
The PCOO, including its attached agencies, has a total of 29 COVID-19 cases. There are 20 active cases of COVID-19 at the PCOO main office and one death.
The PCOO has recorded eight cases in its attached agencies:
APO Production Unit: 1 death, 2 active cases
Philippine Information Agency: 2
Radio Television Malacañang: 2
PTV-4: 1 (recovered)