News Roundup 24 April 2020
Apr 24, 2020 • 2 min Read
Metro Manila, Calabarzon among areas to remain in enhanced quarantine until May 15 | PHILSTAR.COM – President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to extend the enhanced community quarantine in high-risk areas until May 15. Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque confirmed Friday that the president approved the recommendations to further extend the ECQ due to the new coronavirus disease. Among those areas are the National Capital Region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon and the provinces of Pangasinan, Benguet and Albay, and the islands of Mindoro and Catanduanes. The task force also recommended placing the islands of Cebu and Panay and the provinces of Davao Del Norte, as well as Davao City, under ECQ.
Comelec exec: Law students who say shooting of ex-soldier was self defense won’t pass Bar | INQUIRER.NET – Law students who believe that a Quezon City police’s shooting of a former soldier was an act of self-defense are fools and would not pass the Bar exams, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official said. “Who are those law students saying it was self defense? Mga #Shunga u will not pass the Bar #BawalAngShunga,” Guanzon said in a tweet. Guanzon eventually explained that Ragos’ act of allegedly drawing a gun cannot be accounted as “unlawful aggression” because he neither pointed the gun towards Florendo nor did he open fire. She even said that the first shot itself could already be considered murder as no gun was pointed against Florendo.
LGUs need go signal from IATF to impose lockdowns | Manila Bulletin – Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Año on April 24, Friday, clarified that local chief executives (LCE) are no longer allowed to impose their own lockdowns without the go signal of the national government. Año issued the statement during a news briefing, after the President extended the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila and in several other areas to May 15. He stressed that local officials need to get a thumbs-up from the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on COVID-19 before they can lawfully impose lockdowns.
`Too early to tell if curve flattened’ | The Manila Times – The enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) had reduced the “doubling time” of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), but not “slow enough” to indicate that the curve had flattened, the Department of Health (DoH) said on Thursday. Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire bared that while it now takes five days for the Covid-19 cases to double, from the previous three days, the duration was not “slow enough.” “It’s too early to say if we are flattening the curve. We can only be certain if the doubling time is 30 days and more…and we’re far from that situation,” she said during an online media conference.
