Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the government is open to the possible extension of the one-week enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), which began Monday.

"That is the intention of the one week to see if it is enough to stop the increase (of new COVID-19 cases). So this one week is to me personally is an observation of COVID virus trend," he said in a TV interview.

"Yes...all options are open," added Lorenzana, chairman of the National Task Force against COVID-19.

Lorenzana insisted that the timing for the reimplementation of ECQ is ''just right''.

"Our timing is just right... so we are watching closely. The IATF was watching closely and then when it reached, breached 8,000 then that's the time that we acted. So that was around seven days since the start of the spike so the timing is just right, '' said Lorenzana.

''Today, we are on ECQ and hopefully this will stem the tide of the rising cases and let's see, we'll watch happens next," he said.

Lorenzana admitted that the economic managers did not want to reimpose ECQ but they had to give in as cases were increasing.

"There are actually (a) debate among the IATF members because the economic team didn't want to impose ECQ because of (the) economic health of the country (is) in jeopardy, but eventually they relented because the cases are increasing," he added.

Lorenzana also mentioned the government's plan to provide financial assistance to the population affected by the ECQ.

"We have a meeting after this in the IATF. We will discuss what we will recommend to the president but in principle maybe it was already approved by the president to provide cash aid to the affected populace," he said.

"Those who receive (financial aid) before... are the same people who will receive it, because they are what we call very poor families, daily wage earners who will not be able to eat if they stop working," he added.

Amid the increasing COVID-19 cases , Lorenzan expressed belief that the Philippines "did better that a lot of countries."

"We did the best we can and I think we did everything according to what the IATF has decided. The IATF is a collegial body and we discuss a lot of things before we decide on (a) resolution... looking back I think we did better than a lot of countries, their spike in cases sometimes is 30,000 a day," he said. Robina Asido/DMS