The country registered the lowest rate in terms of its daily new confirmed Covid-19 cases per million people among five of its Southeast Asian neighbors, the Department of Health said on Monday, March 7.
In the data provided by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, the country's rate is 8.82.
The country with the highest rate was Singapore with 3,237.55; followed by Vietnam with 1,366.39; Malaysia with 845.10; Thailand with 326.59 and Indonesia with 121.96.
Duque said that the government is praying that the cases of the said countries would go down for "regional security".
"Tayo po ay mas handa na, na tumugon kung saka-sakaling, knock on the wood, Mr. President, huwag na sanang tumaas pa ulit ang ating mga kaso (We are more ready to respond in case, knock on wood, Mr. President, cases would spike again)," Duque said.
He added that the other countries' cases will also go down and it just happened that cases spiked first in the Philippines back in January. New Covid-19 cases on Monday (March 7), according to Duque, were only 700 plus, the fifth straight day that the country registered new cases below 1,000.
Duque also pointed out that one of the starking differences that sets the country apart from the five others is the adherence to minimum public health standards such as the wearing of face masks whereas the countries who achieved high vaccination rates "threw caution to the wind", according to him.
"Ang isa hong differentiator natin (One of our differentiators) compared to many of these countries I should like to believe is our very good compliance to minimum public health standards," he said.
"I think that is one distinct difference that we have manifested compared to other countries in Southeast Asia," he added.
The country's mortality rate is also lower than the global average which is 2.04 percent, at 1.5 percent, compared to countries such as the United States who is far more superior militarily-speaking, in science, as well as in research and development, according to Duque.
Duque stated that he believes that the concept of new normal will be the realization that the virus will stay and the people must live with it.
"That's the philosophical underpinning that we will have to realize when we usher in the new normal," he added.