A Philippine National Situationer on the COVID-19 Pandemic 9 to treat people infected with the virus occupied and 12,631 vacancies. However, this is not the case for hospitals who are in hotspot areas such as Metro Manila. Hospitals have been reporting that they already reached full capacity for COVID-19 patients and can no longer accept them. Among these Metro Manila hospitals are St. Luke’s Medical Center in its Quezon City and Bonifacio Global City branches, Makati Medical Center, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Santa Mesa, Manila, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City, and The Medical City (TMC) in Pasig City ( Jazul and Baron 2020). As COVID-19 cases continue to rise and the healthcare capacity, especially in hotspot areas, approach critical levels, Metro Manila and adjacent communities reverted to what the government calls the Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) in August.3 This meant the restriction of economic activity, suspension of public transportation, and the strict imposition of stay-at-home orders. By October, however, this was eased to a less restrictive general community quarantine (GCQ) following disturbing reports of the country’s economic performance, which has now officially entered into a recession (Aguilar 2020). Government response against COVID-19 This section will discuss the range of interventions that the Philippine government has deployed to suppress the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate its negative impacts. In particular, the section will focus on the Philippine government’s overall approach in addressing the pandemic, the implementing structures that it established, and the enabling laws and policies governing its responses. The report will then turn to the major responses of the government to contain the spread of disease and to alleviate the suffering or dampen the negative impacts of the pandemic, namely the imposition of community quarantine, the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), and the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa (BP2) Program. Response framework The response framework of the Philippines is articulated in the government’s National Action Plan Against COVID-19 (NAP). The NAP was developed by the National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF) at the behest of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID). Its main imperatives are centered on 3 Strict lockdown measures were initially imposed from March 15, 2020 to May 31, 2020 first in Metro Manila and then the rest of the country. The country was reopened gradually thereafter. The middle of July 2020 until the first week of August 2020 saw the acceleration of the spread of the disease. This, together with pleas from healthcare workers who have expressed concerns of exhaustion and the need to recalibrate the government’s response, prompted the reimposition of the stricter Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ).