Wearing face shield on top of face mask is still required as the country continues its battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Thursday.

Nograles made the remark after a Malacañang spokesman and a lawmaker said on Thursday after meeting with the chief executive that face shields should only be worn in hospitals.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said Duterte made the statement during a meeting with lawmakers in Malacañang.

"Last night, the President agreed that face shields should only be used in hospitals," Sotto said in a tweet.

"Allowed us to remove ours! Attn DOH!" he said, noting that those who attended the meeting were not required to wear face shields despite being inside Malacañang.

Among the lawmakers who attended the said meeting were Sotto, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, Senators Ronald Dela Rosa, Christopher "Bong" Go, Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr., Francis Tolentino and Joel Villanueva.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque confirms Thursday that President Duterte said face shields should only be worn in hospitals. He also points that wearing face shield on top of a face mask increases protection against COVID-19.

Albeit Roque says the IATF can still appeal the President's decision.

"We will run this through the IATF meeting later," Nograles said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

IATF is the Inter-Agency Task Force which serves as the government's policy-making body in COVID-19 response efforts.

"Face shields are still required," he pointed out.

Undersecretary Vega's statement had also prompted Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire to cite Joint Memorandum Circular 2021-0001, saying that the memo "only states that face shields are required to be worn in enclosed public spaces, schools, workplaces, commercial establishments, public transport and terminals, and places of worship."

However, the same memo provides that face shields must be worn in “other public spaces wherein 1 meter physical distancing is not possible and there is gathering of more than 10 people at the same venue at the same time.” 

According to a 2014 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, face shields reduced exposure to inhaling cough droplets by up to 96 percent. But the author, William Lindsley, a research biomedical engineer at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, previously told NBC News cloth masks do a better job protecting you against a virus.

"A face shield is good against the really big stuff [particles] that you can kind of see,” he said. “But as the stuff gets smaller and smaller, it's just easy for that to go around the face shield and be inhaled."