authorization and usage on december 2, 2020, president rodrigo duterte signed an executive order allowing the food and drug administration to grant emergency-use authorization (eua) to covid-19 vaccines and treatments. under certain conditions, vaccines and drugs could be approved within a month instead of undergoing the usual six-month review process. among the conditions is for a vaccine manufacturer to obtain prior eua in its country of origin or other countries with a "mature" regulator. the fda announced that three vaccine manufactures namely pfizer, astrazeneca, and sinovac have inquired on the process of obtaining an eua in the philippines. on december 23, pfizer has applied for an eua for its vaccine. duterte also said in december 2020 that some members of the military already received covid-19 vaccine from chinese manufacturer, sinopharm despite the vaccine not yet officially approved by the country's health authorities. a few days later, it was reported that some members of the presidential security group had also received vaccine from unknown manufacturer. testing further information: covid-19 testing a medical worker takes a swab sample from a woman for covid-19 testing at the palacio de maynila. early covid-19 testing in the philippines was limited to persons with a history of travel to countries with cases of local transmission and those with exposure to individuals confirmed to have covid-19. the testing protocols were revised sometime in mid-march 2020 to give priority to the testing of any individual with severe symptoms as well as to the elderly, pregnant and immunocompromised persons with at least mild symptoms. on march 30, symptomatic healthcare workers were also considered priority for testing. during his press briefing on may 19, presidential spokesperson harry roque said that the government's "expanded targeted testing" would target the following: "(1) all symptomatic cases, (2) all of those coming from abroad, (3) all close contacts of confirmed cases that were found through contact tracing, and (4) all of those who tested positive on rapid antibody tests." the government is also opting to test through benchmarks, by testing 1–2% of the philippines' entire population and 10–12% of the worst affected region in the country, which is metro manila. in late march 2020, some politicians and their relatives were reportedly tested for the disease despite not showing any symptoms, causing public backlash amidst a shortage of testing kits since it was against doh guidelines to test asymptomatic individuals. the doh responded to the public criticism by clarifying that, while there is "no policy for vip treatment" with regard to testing for covid-19 and that "all specimens are being processed on a first-in, first-out basis," it "extends courtesy" to front line government officials, specifically those involved in national security and public health. some senators who were tested claim that they used rapid antibody tests not accredited by the doh at that time. on january 24, 2021, after receiving a go-signal from the national government, the philippine red cross announced that they will start conducting covid-19 tests using saliva samples on january 25. capacity covid-19 testing in rodriguez, rizal. in july 2020, there were currently 85 testing laboratories nationwide with 25,000 tests conducted daily. the country has conducted over 3 million tests as of september 2020. on march 9, 2020, a total of 2,000 tests has been conducted at a rate of 200 to 250 people accommodated by tests per day. the testing capacity of the philippine government has been expanded by late march 2020. as of march 23, the research institute for tropical medicine (ritm) in muntinlupa alone can test 600 people per day, other laboratories except for the facility of san lazaro hospital, manila, can do 100 tests, while the said hospital can do 50 tests per day. by march 27, the release of test results conducted at the ritm takes five to seven days due to backlog, but the institute is committed to reducing the turnaround to two to three days. the doh announced that the country will conduct targeted mass testing on april 14, which will be administered strictly for susceptible, probable, and high-risk patients, such as health workers, expectant mothers, and patients with other medical conditions. the country's testing continuously increased, except when ritm temporarily scaled down its operations from april 20–24 after 43 of its staffs tested positive for the virus. the philippines has the capability to conduct mass testing, either through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rt-pcr) or rapid antibody testing, given the increased number and improving capacity of the country's accredited laboratories and the procurement of more testing kits. the first localized targeted mass testing began in valenzuela, metro manila on april 11. other local government units followed suit shortly after the inter-agency task force for the management of emerging infectious diseases (iatf-eid) adopted a resolution that commences 'a national government-enabled, local government unit-led, and people-centered response' to covid-19. testing kits the food and drug administration has approved the usage of 75 pcr test kits (including one locally developed kit), 79 rapid antibody testing kits, 53 immunoassay testing kits, and 7 other testing kits as of july 30. a locally developed pcr testing kit has been made by the national institutes of health at the university of the philippines manila. it is reportedly six times cheaper than its foreign counterparts. it was first approved for commercial use in april 2020 by the food and drug administration (fda) but some kits were recalled in may by its manufacturer, after it was found out that testing using the kits yields indeterminate results 30 percent at the time. a month later, the testing kit were re-approved after its defects were fixed. facilities before january 30, there were no medical facilities in the country that can confirm cases of the virus. before that date, the ritm conducted preliminary tests on suspected cases to determine if they are infected with a coronavirus but could not detect the new strain on patients. samples from suspected cases with confirmed coronavirus infection had to be sent abroad to the victorian infectious diseases reference laboratory in melbourne, australia, for confirmatory testing specifically for sars-cov-2. the national task force for covid-19 created the task force t3 (test, trace, and treat) to establish public-private partnerships that would conduct mass testings. the task force cited the san miguel corporation as a pioneer in the move to open its covid-19 testing laboratory to initially test all of its 70,000 employees. as of august 24, the country has 110 subnational laboratories capable of detecting sars-cov-2. backlogs from may 29 to june 17, 2020, the doh had included testing backlogs on their daily case bulletin. these backlogs were referred to as "late cases" and were validated by the doh's epidemiology bureau after more than four days of the release of test results. late cases were reported alongside new cases or "fresh cases", which corresponded to the cases that were validated three days within the release of test results. this change was implemented by the health department to clarify the sudden increase of cases in the country. the then-largest single-day increase on the number of confirmed cases in the country has been accounted to the backlog in late june 2020, when 2,434 new cases were announced. 1,147 out of these cases were fresh cases and the remaining 1,287 were late cases. it surpassed the backlog in late may 2020, where 1,000 out of 1,046 cases were reported to be late cases. government response main article: philippine government response to the covid-19 pandemic further information: national responses to the covid-19 pandemic president rodrigo duterte meets with the members of the inter-agency task force for the management of emerging infectious diseases (iatf-eid) nationwide measures the national government declared a state of calamity over all of the philippines on march 16, 2020, by virtue of proclamation no. 929 signed by president rodrigo duterte. the declaration brings into effect for six months the following: price control of basic needs and commodities, granting interest-free loans, distribution of calamity funds, authorization of importation and receipt of donations, and hazard allowance for public health workers and government personnel in the fields of science and technology. legislative response senators during a special session to tackle the passage of the bayanihan to heal as one act, march 23, 2020 following the sharp increase of confirmed cases, president duterte called on congress to hold special sessions on march 23 to enact the bayanihan to heal as one act upon his request, which would authorize duterte to "reallocate, realign, and reprogram" a budget of almost ₱275 billion ($5.37 billion) from the estimated ₱438 billion ($8.55 billion) national budget approved for 2020, in response to the pandemic. in the house of representatives, the bill was introduced as house bill no. 6616 with house speaker alan peter cayetano of pateros–taguig as its principal sponsor and was defended on the floor by deputy speaker luis raymund villafuerte of camarines sur's 2nd district. in the senate of the philippines, the bill was introduced as senate bill no. 1418 with senate president tito sotto and senator pia cayetano as its principal sponsors. the house version of the bill passed the house of representatives in a 284–9 vote without abstentions, while its senate version unanimously passed the senate. president duterte signed the bill into law on march 25. the law was effective for three months until june 25, owing to its sunset provision. a legislation was proposed to replace the bayanihan act, dubbed as the bayanihan to recover as one act or bayanihan 2. on august 20, the bicameral committee approved a reconciled version of the bill. it was signed into law by duterte on september 11. lockdowns main articles: covid-19 community quarantines in the philippines and enhanced community quarantine in luzon community quarantines in the philippines (as of january 5, 2022) alert level 5 alert level 4 alert level 3 alert level 2 alert level 1 the government has implemented varying levels of lockdown and/or stay-at-home orders across all the country's local government units (lgus) characterized as "community quarantines". the strictest of these measures is designated as enhanced community quarantine (ecq). restrictions were imposed on various aspects of society such as mass public transportation, mass gathering, and operation of businesses. in september 2021 the alert level system (als) was introduced by the government with pilot implementation of the system in metro manila beginning on september 16, 2021. the als is intended to replace the old quarantine system, which still remains in use outside metro manila pending the nationwide adoption of the als. measures in a certain area will depend on the prevailing alert level. the als has five tiers with alert level 1 being the most lenient and alert level 5 being the most stringent. the coverage of the als was expanded to include lgus in calabarzon, central visayas, and davao regions on october 20, 2021. by november 22, the als was already adopted for all lgus. travel restrictions further information: travel restrictions related to the covid-19 pandemic travel of foreign nationals to the philippines is banned with few exceptions since march 2020. the issuance of visas to all foreign national on march 19 was stopped and all visas already issued are voided except to those issued to families of filipino nationals would remain valid. three days later a travel ban was imposed on all foreign nationals, except spouses of filipino citizens (and their children), and workers for international organizations and non-governmental organizations accredited in the country. foreign aid medical supply aid from china being received by military personnel at villamor air base the governments of china and the united states pledged support to the philippine government response against covid-19. china announced that it would be donating medical supplies including 100,000 testing kits, 100,000 surgical masks, 10,000 n95 masks, and 10,000 sets of personal protective equipment. the united states agency for international development also pledged $2.7 million worth of aid to help the philippines develop adequate testing capabilities, and ensure the availability of medical supplies through the agency's "on-the-ground partners". china's aid was received on march 21, 2020. on march 22, 2020, the dfa said that the philippines would be receiving a donation from singapore consisting of 3,000 testing kits and a polymerase chain reaction machine. in early april 2020, the dfa announced it received 20 units of testing kits, capable of 1,000 tests, from brunei. the