President Duterte was pushing for travel corridors with other ASEAN members.
During a meeting with his counterparts in Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia, President Rodrigo Duterte has called for the opening of travel corridors in the region.
This, as the President cited the need to rehabilitate the pandemic-hit tourism industry.
President Duterte made the statement as he virtually attended the 14th Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Summit last Thursday, October 28.
The creation of those travel corridors would allow people to enter certain territories without the need to quarantine, subject to certain requirements such as full vaccination.
President Duterte said that similar arrangements to safely reopen borders and mitigate the impact of the global health crisis should also be considered.
According to the President, it’s vital that they made BIMP-EAGA a “major catalyst for transformative change” in the region.
President Duterte also stressed during the summit the need to re-establish air and sea linkages disrupted by the pandemic and pointed out the importance of investing in digital infrastructure in order to address development gaps.
In the latest report on Bloomberg which covered 53 countries, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia landed at the bottom 10 in terms of resilience and effectiveness of response to the pandemic crisis. Brunei wasn’t included in the nations which were evaluated.
According to Bloomberg, many of the region’s nations were “still reeling” from the surge caused by the Delta variant while the outbreak in Southeast Asia may have peaked and vaccination has improved.
Philippine authorities questioned the said report, saying that the country’s pandemic situation had been improving. They also asked about the criteria used in the assessment and why only a fourth of the world’s countries were included in the ranking.
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