President Rodrigo R. Duterte

President Duterte, today Thursday, June 17, 2021, agreed that the use of face shields should be in hospitals, several reports confirm.

Presidential spokesman made the confirmation of the president’s stance regarding the use of face shields, in a virtual presser.

Earlier on Thursday, Senate President Vicente Sotto tweeted that Duterte agreed to only allow face shield wearing inside hospitals.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joel Villanueva confirmed that the president told him about the decision regarding the face shield use in a briefing before Roque’s announcement in a virtual presser on Thursday.

Villanueva said that the president asked him if there are other countries requiring the use of face shields on their respective citizens. This is the same question the senator asked in a recent Senate hearing.

Villanueva said the resource persons in the Senate hearing were not able to mention any country in the world requiring citizens to wear face shields, aside from the Philippines. This prompted the president to decide to allow face shield use only in hospitals.

Meanwhile, Roque said that he will be raising the  issue on face shield wearing in the next meeting of the Inter Agency Task Force (IATF), whether or not the members of the task force will appeal the president’s decision or not.