PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte approved a recommendation by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to return the National Capital Region (NCR) or Metro Manila and four nearby provinces, known as the “NCR plus bubble,” to a stricter enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr., in a virtual press briefing, said the President made the decision  due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases supposedly driven by the local presence of coronavirus variants.