Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has widened a month-long quarantine in the Manila region to cover all of the country’s main island, a move that risks stalling one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies to prevent COVID-19 from spreading.
The “enhanced quarantine” of Luzon, which has 60 million people and is responsible for 70 percent of the Philippines’ economic output, would place tens of thousands of daily wage earners at risk of penury.
Hours after the announcement, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin Diokno said policymakers are “inclined” to cut the key interest rate by 50 basis points when they meet tomorrow.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We still have a lot of monetary space” to support the economy, Diokno told reporters yesterday. “We recognize at this point that a coordinated move by monetary authorities and national government will be more effective. In other words, we expect the national government to also use their fiscal space.”
The government late on Monday unveiled a 27.1 billion peso (US$525.49 million) package of fiscal measures. The bulk of the money would go to funding tourism projects, aiding affected workers, and acquiring virus test kits and health equipment.
“That’s the initial package, assuming that the contagion will end shortly after mid-year,” Philippine Secretary of Finance Carlos Dominguez said yesterday. “Other measures will be considered together with the private sector, as the effects of the contagion become more evident.”
Duterte said Luzon is to remain under lockdown until April 12, and that people should leave the house only to buy food, medicine and basic survival items.
The escalation prompted the suspension of Philippine stock, bond and currency trading from yesterday, although Philippine Stock Exchange President Ramon Monzon told traders that he plans to reopen by tomorrow.
The fiscal package comes as governments across Asia and globally enact stimulus to blunt the blow from the coronavirus, but analysts have said that Manila’s move likely would not be enough.
“The fiscal package looks small at just 0.1 percent of GDP to offset these risks, even if one assumes these are all new spending rather than budget reallocations,” Singapore-based Nomura Holdings economist Euben Paracuelles said. “The lockdown expanded to the whole of Luzon will clearly place greater downside risks to growth, as the economic contribution of the island is larger and the fear factor could be magnified.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS