Duterte to deliver address on Tuesday from Davao City

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 6) — President Rodrigo Duterte will address the nation from his hometown of Davao City on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.

The President is back in his home in Davao City after meeting with police and military leaders last week regarding the Jolo shooting incident where four Army intelligence personnel were killed.

Duterte is not expected to announce new community quarantine classifications with prevailing lockdown measures set to end on July 15. But nearly halfway through it, Roque said it is highly unlikely that Metro Manila will revert to a stricter enhanced community quarantine, even as the country recorded its highest single-day jump of COVID-19 cases on Sunday.

"Kinakailangan nang buksan ang ekonomiya pero patuloy pa rin po ang pagiingat... Wala na tayong alternatibo dahil talagang sagad na ang ating ekonomiya, kinakailangan na tayong maghanapbuhay lahat," he said in a media briefing on Monday. 

[Translation: We need to reopen the economy while constantly exercising caution. There is no other alternative because our economy is really down, and we all need to go back to work.]

Roque did not completely discount the possibility of the capital region shifting from general community quarantine to ECQ. He said it could happen if the critical care capacity — which is currently at moderate risk at 63 percent occupation — in Metro Manila worsens. He added that lack of critical care capacity and faster doubling rate of cases will give the government "no other alternative" but to reimpose stricter lockdowns. 

The Philippines recorded an all-time high single-day increase in COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with the Department of Health reporting 2,434 new infections. This broke the previous record high of 1,531 posted just two days ago.

The latest case bulletin issued by the DOH showed that 1,069 of the new cases were registered in Metro Manila.

The total case count soared to 44,254, with 1,147 of the new cases classified as "fresh" or were detected in the last three days. The other 1,287 are “late” cases or were part of the validation backlog, according to the DOH.