Key agencies, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), suspended operations to disinfect offices and facilities as a precautionary measure following the exposure of some of the country’s top economic officials to COVID-19 carriers.
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the DOF building in Manila on Thursday (March 12) was subjected to “total disinfection.”
Dominguez said he also ordered all DOF-attached agencies to do the same.
On Wednesday (March 12) evening, Dominguez disclosed that he had met last week with a COVID-19 carrier. Dominguez is President Rodrigo Duterte’s chief economic manager.
While Dominguez was “feeling well and asymptomatic,” he had placed himself under “preventive self-isolation” together with other DOF officials and staffers with whom he had direct contact.
Dominguez also encouraged journalists covering the DOF to subject themselves to self-quarantine.
Dominguez had come into contact with reporters when he gave a briefing after two key meetings last March 6 and March 10.
Meeting postponed
Early on Thursday, Dominguez said he will get tested but after a meeting of the Monetary Board, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ highest policy-making body, which meets weekly every Thursday.
The meeting was moved to Friday (March 13), though and would be held through teleconference as many officials attending it have self-isolated to be checked for novel coronavirus.
Dominguez serves as Duterte’s representative in the Monetary Board. He had said the BSP office would be on lockdown but a statement by the central bank also on Thursday said there would just be some adjustments in meetings and operations to give way to disinfection.
Assistant Finance Secretary Antonio Joselito G. Lambino II said the DOF’s “mabuhay lane” operations will resume on Friday though the entire department would return to work on March 16 yet.
In a separate statement, the DOF said Dominguez already activated the department’s continuity program—an emergency working arrangement wherein “alternate locations were identified for the different DOF groups.”
These locations would be temporary offices for “skeletal forces” and scattered in Metro Manila.
Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo B. Guerrero reported to Dominguez that there is no logjam in the transport of face masks in Philippine ports as the Bureau of Customs had been “expediting the processing of shipments of face masks” and other supplies or goods needed for COVID-19 relief.
Playing safe
Disinfection of the BOC’s offices was scheduled at the weekend, Assistant Commissioner Vincent Philip C. Maronilla said.
Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay told the Inquirer that while the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) opened on Thursday, its national office in Quezon City, regional and revenue district offices would be closed for disinfection.
Dulay said some employees were required to self-isolate.
The country’s chief economist and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia told the Inquirer that he and other Neda officials and employees, who attended the meeting where Dominguez came into contact with the virus carrier, had already gone on self-quarantine.
“For clarity, I wasn’t exposed to or in contact with a COVID-19 positive person but to one who had contact with such,” said Pernia.
Another Neda official said the self-quarantine would last until March 21, or two weeks after the meetings they attended on March 5 and 6.
While no Neda employee was infected, work at its central office in Pasig City will be suspended until Friday (March 13) with flexible work arrangements to be implemented when operations resume on March 16, the state planning agency said in a statement.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) will also adopt a four-day workweek to implement a Civil Service Commission (CSC) memorandum circular, Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado told the Inquirer.
Short workweek
Avisado, who was also on self-quarantine like the rest of the economic team, said work at the DBM was suspended both on Thursday and Friday.
The shorter workweek starting next week will allow the DBM “not to hamper our operations but at the same time minimize, if not eliminate, the effects of the virus to our personnel,” Avisado said.
Vivencio Dizon, presidential adviser for flagship programs and projects, would also go on self-quarantine “as a precaution” after he came into contact with a COVID-19 carrier, according to his executive assistant in a text message.
Like Dominguez and Pernia, Dizon attended last week’s Neda meeting with Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade and Public Works Secretary Mark Villar, who were also going on self-isolation.
The state-run pension fund GSIS, whose building in Pasay City houses the Senate which was also locked down due to some senators’ exposure to a virus carrier, said its head office on Thursday was “temporarily closed as an urgent precautionary measure.”
Rolando Macasaet, GSIS president and general manager, said in a report to Dominguez that the temporary closure of GSIS offices was necessary as most Senate staffers “have their lunch at the GSIS canteen.”
Macasaet said the COVID-19 carrier who was at the Senate was a GSIS member and he was checking if the person also went to the GSIS office. “The complex will be fumigated and disinfected,” Macasaet said of the entire GSIS building.
Online transactions
All GSIS members, pensioners and clients were advised to go online for record verification, inquiries and other transactions egsismo.gsis.gov.ph.
They may also call the GSIS call center 8847-4747 within Metro Manila, 1-800-10-847-4747 for Globe, 1-800-10-847-4747 for Smart. They may also e-mail gsiscares@gsis.gov.ph or go to the GSIS website www.gsis.gov.ph.
Members may also get in touch with GSIS through its Facebook account @gsis.ph or www.facebook.com/gsis.ph.
GSIS wireless automated processing system kiosks in all GSIS branches and extension offices and many other locations like malls and government offices would also be available.
“The health and safety of the stakeholders, as well as the officials and employees, will always remain as the pension fund’s top priority,” the GSIS said.
For the Social Security System, president and CEO Aurora Ignacio said the SSS main office in Quezon City and its Makati office would be closed on Friday for disinfection.
Ignacio said, though, that the SSS’ IT personnel and a skeletal force would work for “branch support.”
She said other SSS branches in Metro Manila were also asking if they would close for disinfection but that she was “looking at case-to-case.”
The Bureau of the Treasury, on the other hand, will push through with the scheduled sale of T-bills and T-bonds next week, as well as the first “premyo” bond raffle draw on March 18.
“We will proceed with auctions and other critical operations since we have the technology to do remote access,” National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told the Inquirer.
In a separate report to Dominguez, De Leon said the Treasury will also be closed on Friday to sanitize.
Remote work
“Everything is in place for remote access for critical operations like auction, payments and investments,” De Leon said.
“We have assigned rotating skeletal force in case of prolonged lockdown,” she said.
The Treasury, she added, is coordinating with the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. for use of a room and another room in the Treasury’s Pampanga regional office is being readied.
“Cashflow is more than adequate,” De Leon said.
The Insurance Commission will also suspend work on Friday to disinfect premises. Its licensing division manager, Joanne Frances D.C. Castro, also suspended qualifying exams for agents set on March 12 to April 3 after President Rodrigo Duterte declared a nationwide state of public health emergency.
In a statement, the ADB said its staff had been advised to work from home on Thursday “following advice that a visitor to the bank has tested positive” for COVID-19.
“The bank’s Manila headquarters facility will be closed from March 12 to undertake cleaning and disinfecting. Bank operations will continue,” ADB said.
“The ADB management will make a decision in coming days on when to reopen the bank premises,” it said.
“The safety of staff, visitors to the bank, and their families is of utmost importance to us. We are providing support to staff who interacted with the visitor,” said Deborah Stokes, ADB vice president for administration and corporate management.