Coronavirus: Philippines keeps kids under lockdown, harming chances of Singapore-style economic rebound

Name: Philippines’ Duterte tells children to stay home and watch TV as new coronavirus strain hits
Uploaded: 2021-01-26T02:41:37.000Z
Duration: 1 min 1 s
Description: Philippines’ Duterte tells children to stay home and watch TV as new coronavirus strain hits

Policymakers want children to stay indoors, concerned that they could infect grandparents or elderly relatives within extended households

But not only is that preventing parents from going out and spending, there’s mounting concern about the social and mental toll of isolating children

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

An 8-year-old Filipino girl works on an assignment at her home in Manila earlier this month, as schools remain closed amid the pandemic. Photo: Reuters

Bloomberg

Published: 10:41am, 26 Jan 2021Updated: 11:45am, 27 Jan 2021

For CK Colindres and her two children, 12 and 2, weekends were always spent strolling in shopping centres and dining out in the Philippines’ capital, Manila. That all changed when the pandemic struck.

They have been cooped up at home since the government ordered minors to stay indoors to curb virus transmissions, the only country in Southeast Asia to impose such restrictions, where children and teens make up over 40 per cent of the population.

01:01

Philippines’ Duterte tells children to stay home and watch TV as new coronavirus strain hits

The 40-year-old mother is among the millions of parents officials need to go out and spend more, hoping to reinvigorate a consumer-led economy that plunged into recession last year. To do that, it is becoming clear the government needs to lift restrictions on those parents taking their children with them.

A mother and her children wait at a Covid-19 testing centre in Manila earlier this month. Photo: Xinhua

“A big part of the economy doesn’t function” when children are not allowed out, Economic Planning Secretary Karl Chua said last month. The 11.5 per cent drop in gross domestic product in the third quarter could have been shallower by 4 percentage points if there were no restrictions on family activities, he said. The government forecasts growth at 6.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent this year.

Half of consumer demand is not likely to return if the restrictions on minors remain, Chua said.