DESPITE the local detection of an infectious subvariant of the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19), President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said the country is now in a position to return to its pre-pandemic “normal” of hosting giant events.
Marcos said the completion of the culminating activity of the 2022 Masskara Festival in Negros Occidental, which he attended last Sunday, evidences that mass events can now be held safely even in the midst of the pandemic.
The festival was suspended in 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis and only resumed this year with the theme: “Balik Yuhum!”or “Smile again. “
“Now we know how to deal with Covid and we are satisfied to be all here [for the festival],” Marcos said in Filipino in his speech at the event.
“That’s why the MassKara festival is so good. Everyone, not just those in Bacolod, feels that the lives of Filipinos are returning to normal,” he added.
He noted that the festival dates back to a good time, as it was originally conceived in the 1980s to help Negro Occidental, a sugar-producing province, cope with the global drop in sugar prices at the time.
“The Masskara festival was originally conceived out of poverty and sadness. The return of the Masskara festival now shows that we have already emerged from poverty and sadness, as the Bacolodians demonstrated by bringing us back the smile,” Marcos said.
Marcos previously said that tourism will be among the industries that will help the country from the economic effects of the pandemic.
Last Friday, the Ministry of Health (DOH) showed the presence of the Omicron XBB and XBC subvariants.
It registered 81 XBB instances and 193 instances XBC. De the registered XBB instances, 80 were from Western Visayas, which come with Western Blacks.
Health officials have attributed XBB to the rise in Covid-19 cases in Singapore, while features of the XBC subvariant are still under investigation.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is expected to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) this week for the initial import of 150,000 metric (MT) of fertilizer from China.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police on Monday jointly filed two homicide court cases with the Department of Justice (DOJ), suspended Chief Director General of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), Gerald Bantag, his Deputy Security and Operations Officer (DSO) Ricardo Zulueta and several people in a Disadvantage of Liberty (PDL) in connection with the death of broadcaster Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa and the intermediary Jun Villamor.
A senior lawmaker has “heavily” subsidized the proposed revision of the 21-year-old Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), passed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. , to electric power price lists and attract energy-related investments.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) targets some 3,000 structures and squatters (PAs) in Region 4A.