Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia has found an ally in Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion in her campaign to make wearing face masks optional outdoors.
Concepcion supported Garcia’s order, which essentially removed the mask mandates for open spaces in Cebu.
“To me, I believe a mask mandate outdoors is not necessary, I think we should give it to our LGUs to make that decision,” Concepcion told One News’ “The Chiefs.”
Per Garcia, making masks optional in open spaces encourages further normalcy after more than two years of the pandemic. Concepcion agrees, even though President Rodrigo Duterte’s Cabinet is pushing back.
“Let’s not mandate the use of masks outdoors because we know that Omicron is a variant that is quite mild when you get sick and hospitalization are not even there yet and we’re focusing too much on the number of people getting infected daily,” Concepcion added.
He earlier opposed the idea of bringing back Metro Manila to the stricter Alert Level 2 with higher COVID-19 cases, saying it was unnecessary with hospitals still far from danger levels of occupancy.
Metro Manila and most parts of the country remain on Alert Level 1 until June 30.
