As the economy starts to recover following the easing of quarantine measures, the challenge now is to maintain a balance between saving lives and maintaining people's livelihoods amid the ongoing health crisis.

This was according to Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion, who said Saturday (June 6) that several micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) hit hard by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are at the brink of shutting down their businesses.

“The challenge really here is balancing life and livelihood. This is quite challenging and this is where the public and private sector has been trying to look for the right balance,” Concepcion said in a video conference.

More businesses and industries have been allowed to resume limited operations following the imposition of general community quarantine (GCQ) in Metro Manila and some other provinces.

In the online briefing, Concepcion underscored the need to create “vigilant communities” and conduct more testing to mitigate some of the impacts of the crisis on MSMEs.

This is aside from the proposed P1.3 trillion stimulus package of the national government to help the economy recover from the pandemic.

“We are doing our very best because I believe that testing is the only way that we can open up the economy without really creating so much danger,” he said.

Concepcion said Project Ark has raised more than 1.2 million rapid test kits from more than 300 partner companies. Some of the rapid test kits were earlier donated to the Pasig City government.

Mayor Vico Sotto, who was one of the resource persons at the conference, said rapid test kits from Project Ark were used to conduct testing in Barangay Sagad, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases-to-population ratio in Pasig.

Sotto said five people tested positive in the antibody rapid testing. The patients then underwent a confirmatory polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test shouldered by the city government to determine if they have contracted COVID-19.

The mayor has expressed his gratitude to the project's proponents, saying the initiative has helped the local government test more of its residents. 

“Testing is a big challenge for us LGUs (local government units), and although we do have  our private partners for PCR testing, kulang pa rin po talaga (it's not enough),” Sotto said.

“Kaya itong (So this) rapid testing, with this project of Project ARK, we were able to test much more than we would have otherwise. This is a really good project in terms of screening,” he added.