Health Secretary Ted Herbosa said on Monday that he would recommend lifting the country's COVID-19 public health emergency.
In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that COVID-19 no longer represented a global health emergency.
Herbosa told reporters that COVID-19 could now be treated as any other disease like influenza, cough, and cold and no longer posed an emergency.
"Actually, wala nang emergency, 'di ba?... I think I will ask the lifting of the public health emergency in the country," Herbosa said in an mabush interview.
However, he noted that the alert level system would remain.
"The alert level system will stay kasi it’s the system like the typhoon signal that stays. But actually hindi na siya public health emergency. Wala nang public health emergency. It’s just one of the diseases being monitored just like influenza, cough, colds, etcetera," he continued.
The WHO first declared public health emergency of international concern over COVID-19 on Jan. 30, 2020.
And just months after, in March 2020, then President Rodrigo Duterte signed Proclamation No. 922, which declared a state of public health emergency in the country due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Based on DOH's COVID-19 tracker, the Philippines has 8,244 active cases as of June 25, 2023.
