Areas under general community quarantine can again be placed under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) if cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) would rise, Malacanang said.
Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) would present its recommendation to President Rodrigo Duterte on whether to lift, modify or extend the community quarantine enforced across the country. He said the quarantine status would be discussed by the President and the IATF-EID members in a meeting in Davao City today.
“As I said, all decisions of the IATF, whether or not to graduate to the next regime in the case of Metro Manila, to an MGCQ (modified general community quarantine), is always dependent on data. We are looking at the case doubling and our critical care capacity,” Roque said during a virtual press briefing.
Metro Manila and Cebu City, however, will have to be examined very carefully if the status can be downgraded to MGCQ given their different health data, according to Roque. “If the cases continue to rise, of course, there’s a possibility that we will not graduate to the next phase. So, as I said yesterday, we have to look at the data of Metro Manila and Cebu City very carefully and tomorrow the IATF will meet on what will happen on June 16,” Roque said.
“If the trend continues, either we remain under GCQ or return under MECQ. Because all classifications are flexible, depending on the data,” he added. The government earlier sought to relax lockdown measures across the country, allowing more businesses to reopen and public transportation to resume at reduced capacity in a bid to jump-start the local economy.
After more than two months of strict lockdown, Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Cagayan Valley, Calabarzon, Central Visayas, Pangasinan, Zamboanga City and Davao City have downgraded to the more relaxed GCQ until June 15.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said the lifting of GCQ in Metro Manila had a “50-50” possibility.
Ano said further easing of quarantine measures in Metro Manila would be dangerous because under MGCQ, 75% of transportation and businesses would be opened. 
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said health officials were trying to determine why the number of cases in the Central Visayas region have spiked.“We are checking the status of) Central Visayas, as, admittedly, if we look at the data, Region 7 has exceeded NCR in some of the days that we have reported,” Vergeire said.