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(CNN Philippines) Metro Manila — Restrictions will be eased in Metro Manila as the capital region is placed under Alert Level 2 from Feb. 1 to 15, acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles announced on Sunday.

The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases also deescalated the provinces of Batanes, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, Biliran, Southern Leyte and Basilan to Alert Level 2, Nograles added.

Metro Manila was under the stricter Alert Level 3 for a month as COVID-19 cases spiked in late December due to the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The Department of Health earlier said the surge in Metro Manila peaked in mid-January. As of Friday, the capital region was classified as “moderate risk” for COVID-19.

Under Alert Level 2, establishments are allowed to operate at 50% to 70% capacity, depending on whether their operations are indoors or outdoors.

Bars, karaoke places, clubs, concert halls and theaters, and other venues with live voice or wind-instrument performers may operate up to 50% capacity indoors for fully vaccinated individuals, and up to 70% capacity outdoors, regardless of vaccination status. All staff must be fully inoculated… Read More

(CNN Philippines, January 27) Metro Manila — Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rowena Guanzon on Thursday revealed she voted to disqualify Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos from the 2022 presidential race.

Guanzon — the presiding officer of the First Division handling the consolidated petitions against Marcos — disclosed her vote in an interview with CNN Philippines.

“Ang desisyon ko, ang boto ko, disqualified talaga siya. Kasi convicted siya of a crime involving moral turpitude,” Guanzon told News.PH.

“Apat na taon siyang hindi nag file ng income tax return, hindi siya nagbayad ng buwis. At hindi siya nagbayad ng multa sa Regional Trial Court,” she added.

[Translation: My decision, my vote, is that he is really disqualified. Because he’s convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. He did not file his income tax return, he did not pay taxes. He did not pay fines in the Regional Trial Court.]

Guanzon also argued that Marcos’ camp has not produced a certified copy of its claim that the former senator already settled his tax deficiencies… Read More

(PhilStar) MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte has appointed Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Michael Ong as Court of Appeals (CA) associate justice.

Ong replaced Justice Samuel Gaerlan, who was promoted to the Supreme Court on Jan. 8, 2020.

Duterte signed Ong’s appointment on May 20, 2021, but it was received by Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo only on Wednesday.

Ong took his oath as CA associate justice before Gesmundo yesterday.

Malacañang expressed optimism that Ong would uphold the rule of law as associate justice of the appellate court.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Appointments has confirmed the nomination of Mario Lipana as commissioner of the Commission on Audit (COA)… Read More

(SunStar) THE Department of Health (DOH) announced for the second straight day below 20,000 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), with 15,789 infections added to the country’s tally.

The positivity rate also went down to 35.8 percent from Tuesday’s (January 25) 37.2 percent, based on the 48,725 samples tested last January 24.

The DOH said the 15,789 new cases announced Wednesday brought the country’s total caseload to 3,475,293, of which 230,410 or 6.6 percent are active or currently sick.

The health department recorded on Tuesday, January 25, 17,677 additional infections.

It said Wednesday that of the active infections in the country, 6,902 patients were asymptomatic, 218,711 were mild cases, 2,982 were moderate, 1,507 were severe and 308 were in critical condition… Read More

(BusinessWorld) THREE more patients infected with the highly mutated Omicron coronavirus variant have died, bringing the total to five, Philippine health authorities said on Wednesday.

“We have five recorded deaths,” the Department of Health (DoH) said in a Viber group message. “Three were seniors and all have comorbidities.”

One was partially vaccinated, another was unvaccinated, and the remaining three were still up for verification.

The Health department reported the first two Omicron deaths on Jan. 19. One of them was from Metro Manila and the other was from Central Luzon. Both were more than 60 years old, unvaccinated and had serious illnesses.

The Philippines, which is battling a surge in infections spurred by the Omicron variant, has detected 535 Omicron cases among sequenced samples… Read More

(**Agency**) THE coronavirus disease (Covid-19) reproduction in Metro Manila has dipped to below 1, which indicates the decrease in active cases, Octa research fellow Dr. Guido David said on Tuesday, January 25, 2022.

David said as of January 1, the reproduction number in the National Capital Region (NCR) was at .91, the first time since December 23, 2021.

“While this is good news and confirms a downward trend not just in new cases but also in active cases, we have to continue follow health protocols to prevent a reversal of the trend,” he said.

Reproduction number refers to the number of people being infected by one case. This is one of the indicators of Covid-19 trend.

The reproduction number was as high as six on January 2.

David said the reproduction number decreasing below 1 is correlated with a decrease in active cases, not of new cases.

He said this means that active cases may still increase even as new cases have started to decrease, “because active cases are a cumulative of new cases less recoveries and deaths.”

Duque earlier said that Metro Manila has been downgraded from critical risk classification for Covid-19 to high risk following a significant drop in its two-week growth rate from 7,225 percent to 65 percent… Read More

(BusinessWorld) THE PHILIPPINES will start vaccinating children aged five to 11 on Feb. 4, the country’s vaccine chief said on Monday night.

The first batch of vaccines for children will arrive next week, vaccine czar Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. told a taped Cabinet meeting with President Rodrigo R. Duterte. The Department of Health (DoH) would release the guidelines this week.

The US Embassy briefed local officials this month on how to proceed with the vaccination, he added.

Mr. Galvez said kids in the five to 11 age group would be given doses lower than the ones given out to children aged 12 to 17.

He said the vaccination of children would be in phases, adding that two sites would be set up per area in Metro Manila in the pilot implementation.

After the initial rollout, the vaccination of kids would be expanded to other sites in the metropolis and other regions, he added.

The country would get 780,000 doses of the pediatric formulation for Pfizer, Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 31, National Task Force Against COVID-19 consultant Ted Herbosa told a televised news briefing on Tuesday.

About 1.8 million more doses would be delivered a few days later, he added… Read More

(CNN Philippines) Metro Manila — A company linked to former senator and billionaire Manny Villar has gained the government’s backing to enter the television market using frequencies previously assigned to ABS-CBN.

From what it seems a revival of the company’s application filed in October 2006, Advanced Media Broadcasting System (AMBS) secured a provisional authority to operate a digital television broadcasting system in Metro Manila and Mega Manila using Channel 16 — almost two years after ABS-CBN lost in its franchise renewal push… Read More