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Philippines Allows Soft Post-Lockdown Reopening to Avert Dire Economic Fall

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - The Philippine government lifted some of its strictest
   coronavirus containment measures Monday in what observers called a bid
   to salvage an economy battered by unemployment and new signs of
   poverty.

   Most businesseswere allowed tore-open and some public transportation
   came back to normal, per orders approved May 28 by President Rodrigo
   Duterte. A percentage of domestic flights started taking off again,
   too. Bars, dine-in restaurants and schools will remain closed while
   minors and the elderly are still asked to stay home.

   The shutdown orders that began in mid-March have put millions out of
   work, threatening some with poverty that had afflicted about one in
   five Filipinos before the disease outbreak especially if they needed
   medical attention. The economy is looking at a 2.2% contraction this
   year, market research firm IHS Markit forecasts.Nationwide unemployment
   topped 10% in March and April.

   Food struggled to reach consumers because farmers couldn't move produce
   through locked-off parts of the country, the World Economic Forum said
   last month. Government food aid had missed urban slum dwellers in late
   March, prompting them to look for meals elsewhere, domestic news
   outletRapplerreported.

   Monday's reopening movesare seen asways to ease the economic lossesin
   spite ofa coronavirus caseload that had climbed past 18,000 as of
   Monday with 957 deaths and little sign of a falling caseload curve.

   Reopening rules will let more shops, factories, offices and transport
   operators try to resume where they left off in March, said Maria Ela
   Atienza, political science professor at the University of the
   Philippines Diliman.

   "There are groups, for instance the bus drivers, many of them of course
   lost a lot of income," Atienza said. "Some people cannot continue
   working, so people definitely are desperate."

   In a Web-broadcast speech May 28, Duterte urged mall owners to give
   their commercial tenants rent breaks if the shops had made no money
   during the shutdown.

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