Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles said President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation of Education Secretary Leonor Briones to expand limited face-to-face classes

"The president has no objection and as after the presentation of Sec. Briones then they will continue their study. Again, it will be the DepEd and the DOH combined who will be assessing the expansion or pilot implementation ng face-to-face classes under DepEd," Nograles said in his virtual briefing on Tuesday.

Briones made the recommendation during Duterte's Talk to The People Monday night.

"Our recommendation, Mr. President, progressive expansion. Not all at the same time. If an area is under Alert Level 1 and 2, selective, we can expand face-to-face," Briones said.

"If the face-to-face (classes) will expand, it will be the first week of February because the assessment of the Department of Health for January 16 to 31 was already released and the level 3 risk assessment is still there," she said.

"We are really not going to move the level 3 assessments like NCR and Region IV-A," she added.

Briones assures that the DepEd will always consider advice from the other government agencies in its move to expand the implementation of limited face-to-face classes.

"That is our proposal, to expand by February but we will be very careful taking into consideration the advice of the Department of Health, the LGUs, as well as now the Department of Justice," she said.

"The framework of shared responsibility continues. We are conscious of the concur of LGUs, and the parents' consent remains to be a requirement. We will not expand without coordination with the local governments and if we have not yet received the written consent of the parents,"

Briones said only vaccinated teachers and non-teaching personnel will participate in the implementation of the limited face-to-face classes.

"And the participation of vaccinated students, because Secretary (Carlito) Galvez already announced that by March, by April, we will start the vaccination of children, we preferred that," she said. Robina Asido/DMS