Palace urges OCTA team to desist from publicly making recommendations on quarantine rules

October 13, 2020

Malacanang urged on Tuesday experts of the OCTA Research Team to refrain from making public recommendations regarding the quarantine classifications in the country amid the coronavirus disease pandemic.

In a televised press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said if they have proposals, it would be better to course them privately to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases and not to preempt the body.

"Well, I really appreciate the efforts of OCTA Research Team in helping us monitor COVID cases. But I have requested to them to desist from making recommendations on classification because this is a job of the experts. And I understand although they have one or two epidemiologists, it's still not the same number of experts working with the IATF," he explained.

"They can probably endorse or course their recommendations privately to the IATF in order not to preempt the (task force)," Roque said, adding this would also avoid confusion among the people.

He said normally it is President Rodrigo Duterte who announces the new quarantine classification for the whole country.

Roque made the statement after the OCTA researchers, in a recent monitoring report, suggested the enforcement of stricter quarantine protocols in Bauan, Batangas; Calbayog in Western Samar; and General Trias in Cavite due to rising COVID-19 daily attack rates.

But the spokesman also noted that in case the involved places are municipalities or barangays, the provincial governors in collaboration with the Regional IATFs could act on the matter and not the national IATF anymore. 

The IATF has four quarantine classifications depending on the number of COVID-19 cases and healthcare capacity in a particular province or city. The strictest classification is enhanced communitiy quarantine, followed by modified ECQ, general community quarantine, and modified GCQ. Celerina Monte/DMS