The Philippines has adopted the ten-point policy agenda to accelerate and sustain the country's economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, taking a whole-of-government approach to align all economic recovery programs and measures of the national government.
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea signed Executive Order No. 166 on adopting the Ten-Point Agenda on Economic Recovery on March 21, 2022.
The Ten-Point Policy Agenda aims to sustain and accelerate economic recovery and to drive broad-based expansions across various productive sectors amid the challenges brought by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
"There is an urgent need to adopt policies on economic recovery to sustain current economic gains, minimize the pandemic's long-term adverse effects, and restore the country's development trajectory," the EO read.
The EO directs all government offices, including all local government units (LGUs) and state universities and colleges, to ensure that all related policies, measures, and programs are aligned with the following principles:
- Strengthen healthcare capacity
- Accelerate and expand the vaccination program
- The further reopening of the economy and expand public transport capacity
- Resume face-to-face learning
- Reduce restrictions on domestic travel and standardize LGU requirements
- Relax requirements for international travel
- accelerate digital transformation through legislative measures
- Provide for enhanced and flexible emergency measures through legislation
- Shift the focus of decision-making and government reporting to more useful empowering metrics
- Medium-term preparation for pandemic resilience
Based on the EO, the national government shall take appropriate measures to expand the country's healthcare capacity and align with the global standards of health workers and other health resources to population ratios.
The government shall also expand vaccination sites, reduce artificial barriers, and streamline related procures. The use of vaccine stocks by the private sector will also be reduced.
The EO also mandates the safe resumption of economic and social activities while maintaining the current alert level system, removing age-based restrictions on mobility, and further expanding transport capacity.
Under the Ten-Point Agenda, the national government shall strengthen efforts to ensure the safe resumption of onsite learning.
The national government shall likewise streamline and standardize domestic travel and local tourism requirements and maximize the use of information and communications technology to ease related processes. Except otherwise reasonably required by LGUs, the domestic travel requirements will be limited to vaccination cards or negative RT-PCR tests and/or inter-scannable QR codes. The Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases shall ensure the interoperability of these QR codes from various contact-tracing applications.
Meanwhile, the national government will now aim to relax requirements for international travel and provide quarantine exemptions for vaccinated individuals coming into the country to boost international tourism, increase foreign investments, and restore jobs in the tourism sector.
The national government shall prioritize the passage of key legislation on digital transformation. In addition, the government aims to propose legislation that would allow the efficient roll-out of emergency programs during pandemics. These proposed pieces of legislation may include:
- The establishment of standby funds to be used during pandemics
- The grant of authority to reallocate funds for pandemic response
- The lifting of ceilings on the use of Quick-Response Funds
- The relaxation of data privacy requirements
- The standardization of special risk allowance, hazard pay, and other reasonable forms of compensation for healthcare workers
In ensuring that policies on economic recovery and reports on Covid-19 cases, the government shall consider the following:
- Total severe or critical cases
- Case fatality ratio
- Total number of vaccinations, to avoid unnecessary changes in alert levels and encourage vaccinations
Lastly, the national government shall formulate and develop a Comprehensive Pandemic Response Framework to ensure the country's resilience against future pandemics, considering international best practices and the country's experience in addressing the present crisis. The government shall also endeavor to strengthen health and social protection systems.
Covid-19 and the Philippine economy
Data from the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) showed that at the height of the pandemic in 2020, 10.1 percent of businesses temporarily closed, and 0.4 percent permanently ceased operations.
During the same period, unemployment rose to around 8.7 million Filipinos, and the loss of household wage and income amounted to P1.04 trillion or an average of P23,806 per worker.
Hunger likewise swelled to one in four families in Metro Manila.
The Covid-19 pandemic has impeded the country's three-decade uninterrupted growth, contracting its gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as -9.6 percent in 2020.
Despite these consequences, Malacañang said the government's swift response enabled the economy to grow faster than most forecasts in 2021 and surpassed targets. The GDP grew by 12 percent in the second quarter, 6.9 percent in the third quarter, and 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter.
"The robust economic expansion has been mainly driven by the risk management strategies of the government, particularly allowing the economy to further safely reopen while implementing measures such as the acceleration of the vaccination program and a shift to the Alert Levels System and granular lockdowns," the EO read.