Enhanced community quarantine in Luzon
The enhanced community quarantine in Luzon was a series of stay-at-home orders and cordon sanitaire measures implemented by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on the island of Luzon and its associated islands. It is part of the COVID-19 community quarantines in the Philippines, a larger scale of COVID-19 containment measures with varying degrees of strictness. The "enhanced community quarantine" (ECQ) is the strictest of these measures and is effectively a total lockdown.
Enhanced community quarantine in Luzon
To contain the COVID-19 pandemic in Luzon.
Checkpoints, banning of public events, business and school closures, social distancing, among others.
There were three instances of the ECQ being implemented in Luzon. The first ECQ and first MECQ were implemented between March 17 and May 31, 2020. This was announced on March 16, two days after the government of the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte placed Metro Manila under a "community quarantine" on March 14. It was implemented throughout Luzon from March 17 until May 15, and remained in areas with a moderate to high risk of infection until May 31. New degrees such as "modified enhanced community quarantine" (MECQ) and "general community quarantine" (GCQ) were introduced by the IATF-EID during the month of May as easing restrictions commenced, until all restrictions under ECQ and MECQ were downgraded to GCQ and "modified general community quarantine" (MGCQ) on June 1.
After two months of a relaxed GCQ status, a second MECQ was reimplemented in Metro Manila and its immediate surrounding provinces on August 4 and was lifted on August 18. Finally, on January 24, 2021, a second ECQ was restored in Tabuk while an MECQ was raised in four more municipalities in Kalinga. It was lifted on February 15. Due to a recent spike in COVID cases, especially in the Greater Manila Area, a third ECQ was reimplemented for the Holy Week starting on March 29 until April 4, which has since been extended until April 11, 2021.
The ECQ affected around 57 million people in Luzon during its peak. It also resulted in the mobilization of the national and local governments, with the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act passed to combat the epidemic. The effectiveness of the ECQ implementation was noted by a study made by the University of the Philippines, although there were also several documented cases of violations of ECQ regulations. Authorities then pushed for stricter enforcement, which in turn raised concerns of human rights violations.
Implementation[edit]
Management[edit]
The IATF-EID for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases that was created through Executive Order No. 168 in 2014[119] convened in January 2020 to address the growing viral outbreak in Wuhan, China.[120] They made a resolution to manage the spreading of the new virus,[120] which was known at the time as 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and eventually renamed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19.[121] On March 9, 2020, President Duterte called the IATF-EID amidst the rising cases of COVID-19 in the Philippines.[122]
Executive Secretary Medialdea issued a memorandum on March 16 regarding the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine of the entire Luzon addressing the heads of government agencies, offices and similar institutions as well as state universities and colleges and LGUs.[25] On the following day, the IATF-EID approved and adopted operational guidelines for the Luzon ECQ.[123] On March 18, Medialdea issued another memorandum about additional guidelines for the Luzon ECQ affirming the rules set by the IATF.[73]
On March 25, the IATF-EID revealed a National Action Plan (NAP) to slow down the spreading of COVID-19.[124] The NAP was created to effectively and efficiently implement and decentralize the system of managing the COVID-19 situation.[125] In addition, the IATF-EID created the COVID-19 National Task Force headed by Department of National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, which handles the operational command.[126] At the same time, the IATF-EID became the "policy-making body of operations" while the National Incident Command administers the daily concerns and operations.[127]
Mobilization[edit]
On the first day of the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine or ECQ, President Duterte declared the entire Philippines under a state of calamity for a period of six months "unless earlier lifted or extended as circumstances may warrant," in order for the LGUs to act swiftly on emergency circumstances through getting funds fast.[128] In addition, the President called all agencies that enforce the law, with the help of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, "to undertake all necessary measures to ensure peace and order in affected areas, as may be necessary."[128] He also ordered the freezing of price of basic goods, emergency medicines and medical supplies through a memorandum.[129] Agencies of the national government and the LGUs are responsible for making sure that prices are controlled.[130]
Also on the first day of the ECQ, the DOH launched hotlines for COVID-19 emergencies.[131] The hotlines (02-894-COVID or 02-894-26843 and 1555) were made possible through the DOH's partnership with the DILG's National Emergency Hotline and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) as well as Smart Communications, PLDT's mobile subsidiary.[132] The numbers are available 24/7 throughout the Philippines.[133]
Suspensions and extensions of deadlines[edit]
On March 18, 2020, the second day of the ECQ, Senate President Vicente Sotto III spoke to Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Arthur Tugade and proposed the extension of the renewal of expiring licenses of drivers and franchises of public transport due to the inconveniences brought about the implementation of the ECQ.[134] Tugade responded positively and directed the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to extend the deadline up to the end of April 2020.[135][136] The Bureau of Internal Revenue also lengthen the deadline for filing income tax returns (ITR) from the original April 15 date to May 15.[137] Nevertheless, the agency appealed to the public to file their ITR on the original April 15 date if they are already prepared, "in order to help the Duterte administration raise enough funds" for battling the economic impact of COVID-19.[138] BIR is expecting a shortfall of about Php 145 billion tax collections because of the new deadline.[138]
On March 20, the fourth day of the ECQ, the DOTr announced that they will disallow the entry of foreigners to the Philippines in compliance with the order by the DFA to suspend visa issuance and visa-free privileges starting midnight of March 22.[139] Exceptions to this rule include "foreign spouses and children (provided that the foreign spouse and children are traveling with the Filipino national), foreign government and international organization officials accredited to the Philippines."[140] The Bureau of Immigration followed suit and applied the restrictions set by the DFA.[141]
Effectiveness[edit]
Based on the number of cases and fatality rate[edit]
According to the study by the COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team of the University of the Philippines (UP) released on April 13, 2020, the implementation of the Luzon-wide ECQ has been effective to slowing down the spread of the coronavirus even if they predicted that there would be around 9,000 to 44,000 cases by the end of April 2020.[224] Using time-series analysis, the UP response team was able to estimate those possible cases through trends that came from the DOH data they gathered.[225] Greatly relying on the work being done on finding new cases is the key to evaluating the effectiveness of the ECQ.[225] Although, they added that the next courses of actions will not be solely dependent on the number of cases.[225] The effectiveness can also be determined by fatality rate, which is 5.38% and the reproduction number is 0.6398; with those figures as of April 10, the study declared that the ECQ has been effective.[225]
Furthermore, the study provided a matrix for the LGUs that can be the basis of their decision on what quarantine methods they can use after the supposed end of the Luzon ECQ on April 30 for continued effectiveness.[225] There are four proposed courses of action namely no quarantine, general community quarantine, enhanced community quarantine, and extreme enhanced community quarantine that would be dependent on the probability of outbreak and the ratio of confirmed cases to estimated outbreak threshold.[225][226]
Based on the implementation of travel restrictions[edit]
The San Miguel Corporation, which is one of co-operators of the expressways in the Philippines, said on April 3 that during the first 14 days of the Luzon lockdown, the volume of vehicles dropped to 80% in the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx).[227] However, on April 15, IATF spokesperson Nograles said that the number of private vehicles that ply over EDSA and other major thoroughfares got bigger after one month of the Luzon ECQ as the number of motorists defying the lockdown guidelines exceeded 108,000.[228] Because of this, the PNP's Highway Patrol Group implemented a stricter imposition of quarantine rules on checkpoints along the SLEx, EDSA and other highways.[229] Drivers of vehicles with non-essential business that are traveling on these roads were ticketed and their license confiscated.[230]
Based on curfew, mass gatherings and social distancing rules[edit]
It was reported on April 2 that people violating curfew rules reached around 20,000 according to PNP.[231] Duterte warned the public that there would be martial law-like lockdown if people continues to disobey ECQ rules, specifically social distancing and curfew.[232] Some of those violations include crowded markets in Metro Manila and holding of cockfighting and boxing events.[232][233] In other quarantine rules, the imposition of window hours risked violating the social distancing guidelines since more people would go to the markets at the same time; thus, the DILG directed LGUs to discontinue observing the window hours (where people go out only on specific few hours during the day).[234]