President Rodrigo Duterte is set to announce on Monday night new quarantine classifications in some parts of the country starting June 16 as Metro Manila and the four nearby provinces may return to "regular" general community quarantine and not yet modified GCQ.

In a televised press briefing on Monday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Duterte will have his regular "Talk to the People" later today after the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases finalizes its recommendation on the new quarantine protocols.

"So, is it likely to be MGCQ? I have serious doubts that it will be MGCQ. Is it likely to be regular GCQ? Most likely, but let us wait because in a few hours the IATF will recommend," he said.

He noted that before the new variants of COVID-19 were found in the country, the number of new cases was still about 1,000 per day and yet Metro Manila did not shift to MGCQ.

But, he said the new cases daily are about 7,000 in the country. "I don't know how many of that (cases) came from Metro Manila but they are still higher compared before when there were only about 1,000 cases and yet we did not go to MGCQ," he said.

Aside from the National Capital Region, Duterte will decide on the new quarantine classification for Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal, which are part of the NCR Plus, which are currently under GCQ "with restrictions" until June 15.

Roque said there were also other local government units which have been appealing to place their areas under enhanced community quarantine, the most restrictive quarantine classification, due to high cases of COVID-19.

He said the IATF would act on the request. Celerina Monte/DMS