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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Allowing fully-jabbed folks in dine-in, personal care services not discrimination-DTI

Allowing fully-jabbed folks in dine-in, personal care services not discrimination-DTI

Published Sep 14, 2021 04:54 pm

Allowing fully-vaccinated individuals in limited dine-in and personal care services in areas under alert level 4 is not a discriminatory move, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said Tuesday, Sept. 14.

A restaurant staff cleans a table after the IATF allowed indoor dining in NCR at limited capacity on April 30, 2021 (Ali Vicoy/MANILA BULLETIN)

"It's more of an incentive, hindi po ito (this is not) discrimination," DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez said during a televised briefing.

The Trade chief explained that allowing dine-in and personal care services to operate in a limited 10 percent capacity and only accommodating fully-vaccinated customers are aimed at regaining the employment in these establishments, which remained closed since the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila.

"This is again kung tutuusin nga dapat sarado siya, matagal na nating nire-request to sa IATF na sana maibalik man lang yung trabaho dito, over 2 million ang involved na trabaho (These are actually closed, we've been requesting the IATF to open this sector to regain the lost jobs which are about 2 million jobs)," Lopez said.

With the reopening of these businesses at a limited capacity, about 150,000 to 200,000 workers will regain their jobs.

Lopez said the only way to convince the IATF to reopen these sectors is to ensure the strict implementation of health protocols in indoor services.

The Department of Health (DOH), he said, also feared that while customers and workers under these sectors are fully-vaccinated, transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) may still happen.

"Ang ating argument ay puwedeng mahawa pero at least hindi magiging severe o critical yun po ang pangako ng vaccine (Our argument was, yes, transmission is still possible but at least it will not cause severe or critical cases). Sabi nga natin (Like what we said), we believe in the vaccine, we should believe in the vaccinated," Lopez said.

The allowed capacity in these services, he further said, is still not much because almost 90 percent of the operations of restaurant and personal care services rely on indoor operations and only 10 percent portion of this has been allowed.

"But this will at least help the economy," Lopez said.

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DTI Ramon Lopez 91421 dine in fully vaccinated
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