In compliance with the directives of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the Inter-Agency Task Force approved measures to employ a whole-of-government solution to increase demand for COVID-19 vaccination. These measures are to take effect beginning December 1, 2021.
In areas where there are sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, COVID-19 vaccination of eligible employees tasked to do on-site work shall be required by all establishments and employers in the public and private sector. However, eligible employees who remain to be unvaccinated may not be terminated but they shall be required to undergo regular RT-PCR testing, or antigen tests, at their own expense.
Public transportation services in the road, rail, maritime, and aviation sectors shall likewise require all their eligible workers to be fully vaccinated as a condition to continue their operations.
Public and private establishments may validly refuse entry and/or deny service to individuals who remain to be unvaccinated, or are merely partially vaccinated, despite being eligible for vaccination. Frontline and emergency services, on the other hand, shall continue to render assistance to all persons, regardless of vaccination status.
To ramp up demand for vaccination, local government units (LGUs) are strongly enjoined to issue orders or ordinances providing incentives for fully vaccinated individuals, and for business establishments to require proof of vaccination before individuals and/or entities may undertake or qualify for certain activities.
Further, all workers to be vaccinated during work hours shall not be considered absent upon sufficient proof of a confirmed vaccination schedule.
Accordingly, only the presentation of a medical clearance issued by a government health office, or birth certificate, as the case may be, shall serve as sufficient and valid proof of ineligibility for vaccination.
Moreover, all government agencies are enjoined to implement measures prioritizing fully vaccinated individuals availing of government programs and services.
Meanwhile, the IATF likewise approved the recommendation on the expanded implementation of the alert levels to other areas, in adherence to the implementation phases provided under Executive Order No. 151 (series of 2021).
The schedule for the expanded implementation of the alert levels to other regions are as follows: Phase 2: Regions I, VIII, and XII beginning November 12, 2021; Phase 3: Regions II, V, and IX beginning November 17, 2021; and Phase 4: Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions IV-B, XIII (CARAGA), and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) beginning November 22, 2021.
To have an accurate assessment in placing areas under Alert Level 1, the IATF directed the National Task Force Against COVID-19 National Vaccines Operations Center and the Department of Information and Technology to facilitate the provision of daily vaccination data, such as relevant data on target population and vaccination coverage per priority group.
In addition, the Small Technical Group on Safety Seal shall finalize the list of 3Cs establishments to be included in the Safety Seal metric for Alert Level 1 de-escalation. LGUs are further directed to conduct an inventory on the total number of 3Cs establishments and number of 3Cs establishments with Safety Seal.
Lastly, the IATF approved the de-escalation of Mountain Province to General Community Quarantine beginning November 16, 2021 until November 30, 2021. ### OPS
