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 Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
RSS