The number of closed establishments outside of the National Capital Region (NCR) worsened to 7 percent from 4 percent with the imposition of different alert levels in the regions, while NCR has improved to 11.76 percent from 16 percent following the limited opening in restaurants and personal care services under alert level 4.
Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said that at the Laging Handa Public Briefing in Malacanang that the regular updates in the survey of establishments involved 15,000 establishments in Metro Manila.
Lopez noted that the country experienced high percentages of closures last year at 40 percent. This has gone down to 4 percent when the general community quarantine was implemented.
However, due to the reimposition of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and Modified ECQ in August to September this year, the number rose again to 16 percent.
With the shift of the protocols to alert levels from quarantines where NCR was placed under Alert Level 4 enabling limited operating capacity of some sectors, the number of closed businesses have improved to 11.7 or close to 12 percent from 16 percent.
This is largely due to the fact that restaurants and personal care services are allowed to operate at limited capacities.
Lopez further said that if the NCR region would be placed under Alert Level 3, this means more enterprises would be able to return to operations at higher capacity and more sectors allowed to reopen.
When that happens, Lopez said the P30 billion estimated weekly wage losses in NCR during the MECQ may be potentially recovered.
Meantime, Lopez has proposed that gyms may be allowed to operate at limited capacity even under Level 3 to ensure continuity of opened economic activities. He suggested of 20 percent operating capacity for fully vaccinated clients.
The rationale, he said, is that gyms or fitness centers are a lot safer than personal care services because clients need not remove their masks and face shields, no physical contact and can easily maintain social distancing.