The Office of the President has approved the request of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) to lock down its facilities in Manila and Pasig City due to the rising COVID-19 cases of its employees.
The lockdown will take effect on Tuesday, April 13, and will run for 10 days as both the administrative offices at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila and the Philsports Complex in Pasig will be under confinement for disinfection and cleansing.
As of writing, the government sports agency recorded 63 active cases this month alone. Sources refused to divulge medical information of the active cases due to its sensitivity.
Last month, the PSC had 18 cases but all of them have already recovered. There were 41 active cases prior to PSC’s request for a lockdown last Friday.
PSC Executive Director Atty. Guillermo Iroy Jr. has been meeting the management committee over the last few days to ensure that the agency’s health safety protocols are revisited and fortified.
“It is for their and everyone’s safety. We all have a family to protect,” Iroy said.
The PSC’s office operations shall shift to work-from-home arrangements on those lockdown dates to ensure that delivery of service remains unhampered.
“We hope to break the transmission during those days, to arrest the spread of COVID-19 among our employees,” said Chief of Staff Marc Velasco.
“We are still waiting for some test results and we are hoping that we do not add any more positives.”
At the moment, PSC commissioners as well as PSC Chairman Butch Ramirez are residing and working inside the Philsports Complex.
Sources said they are healthy and doing well, but are minimizing contact as extra precaution while still doing their active duties.
The PSC remains busy amid the pandemic as athletes are still vying for berths for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The country so far has six qualifiers to the Games.
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The government sports agency is also doing its best to avoid delays on athletes’ allowances during the pandemic, as well as looking at ways to help athletes continue with their training programs for the 2021 Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam late this year.
READ: PSC approves SEA Games lineup; Athletes await IATF approval on training resumption
The country seeks to send around 600 athletes to the biennial meet.