The national government again failed to provide guidelines for the pilot-testing of the so-called granular lockdowns in the National Capital Region (NCR) despite its scheduled implementation tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 8.
"Ito ay kasalukuyang pinag-uusapan pa (It is still being discussed)," Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a virtual press briefing Tuesday, Sept. 7. The briefing is ongoing as of this posting.
Roque said he would provide Palace beat journalists with details of the granular lockdown implementation in Metro Manila once they become available.
"We were supposed to discuss four pages of script on the details of the granular lockdown. We were however requested by the Secretariat of the IATF in including Usec. Vergeire not to discuss them as planned," he said.
He said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) will have a final meeting on the matter at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
"Pakiusap ko po sa ating mga alkalde, antayin po muna natin ang meeting ng 3 p.m. (My appeal to the mayors is to wait for 3 p.m. meeting), if need be we will have special press briefing," Roque added.
The Palace official said during Monday's press briefing that the guidelines for these more focused, strict lockdowns would be released before Sept. 8.
“The granular lockdown does not have to be an entire barangay. It can be a street, it can be a house, it can be a community. It should be as granular as we can,” he said.
The mayors or local chief executives are expected to play a major role in the conduct of granular lockdowns in the pilot areas.
NCR or Metro Manila will revert to a general community quarantine (GCQ) from Sept. 8 to 30, the granular lockdowns notwithstanding. The region went through stricter quarantine classifications as a whole last month.
Ilocos Norte under MECQ
Meanwhile, Roque announced in the briefing that the province of Ilocos Norte will switch to the stricter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from Sept. 7 to 30. Its previous classification was a GCQ with heightened restrictions.