and JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR
SIXTEEN senators led by Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Thursday signed a resolution calling for the immediate resignation of Francisco Duque III as health secretary for what they said is his incompetence in dealing with the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
President Duterte wants Duque to stay in his post, according to Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.
“The President has made a decision for Health Secretary Duque to stay put … Secretary Duque was made aware of the sentiments of the senators and the President expects him to work even harder to set aside any doubts on his capacity and sincerity to serve the public during these difficult times,” Medialdea said.
Duque said it is not time for finger-pointing and bickering now that the country is facing a “invisible enemy.”
“It is very unfortunate and I’m really hurt that at this time, the Senate is calling for my resignation, when in fact we need to come together because as you know, we need to unite. We have such a formidable enemy, this is a war, this is World War III and this is against an invisible enemy,” Duque told reporters on Facebook Live after participating in a teleconferencing with the members House of Representatives’ Defeat COVID-19 committee chaired by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano.
“How I wish the Senate had been more magnanimous and more appreciative of the efforts we’re trying to put in place from the time of COVID-19 began in this country,” Duque said.
“We respect the fair opinion but this I have to say. I serve at the pleasure of the President and for as long as he continues to put his trust and confidence in my capabilities I will lead the DOH and the IATF in putting forward a very effective response against COVID-19 in this country,” he also said.
The Defeat COVID-19 committee serves as a recommendatory body to the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
Senate Resolution No. 362 was signed by Sotto, president pro tempore Ralph Recto, majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, Panfilo Lacson, Juan Edgardo Angara, Nancy Binay, Pia Cayetano, Grace Poe, Francis Tolentino, Joel Villanueva, Ronald dela Rosa, Imee Marcos, Manuel Lapid, Ramon Revilla Jr., Sherwin Gatchalian, and Emmanuel Pacquiao.
The eight senators who did not sign the resolution were Christopher “Bong” Go, chairman of the Senate health committee; Richard Gordon; Cynthia Villar; Aquilino Pimentel III; and the four members of the minority bloc — minority leader Franklin Drilon, Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, and Leila de Lima.
Lacson said two of the eight senators who did not sign the resolution “simply expressed support but begged off from signing.” He did not identify them.
Lacson said the rest of the senators “were unreachable.”
He also said issues raised by the senators against Duque “have commonalities as they are glaring and have bearing on the country surviving the COVID-19” and they are “simply for a competent secretary of health.”
“Take note: not more competent but simply a competent one at the helm. Having said that, the resolution does not involve the President. It is virtually an appeal-demand, if you will, to Secretary Duque to resign and the reasons are stated in the resolution,” Lacson said.
In the resolution, the senators said Duque showed lack of competence, efficiency, and foresight as shown by his warning of repercussions of banning flights to and from China when the COVID-19 was its peak middle of February, and saying that confirmed COVID-19 cases “are not limited to China.”
The unhampered entry of tourists from China that time led to the first COVID-19 cases, a 38-year-old Chinese woman and her 44-year-old male partner. The man died on February 2, the first COVID-19 fatality outside of China where the virus originated.
Also, the DOH failed to trace all the people the Chinese couple had interacted with when they flew into the country and when they visited Cebu and Dumaguete City.
“The contact tracing was hampered and delayed possibly resulting in the failure to prevent the initial spread of the virus,” the senators said in the resolution.
They also said Duque failed to alert the medical community and the public that there were patients already admitted in hospital showing symptoms of COVID-19 infection “thus exposing many Filipinos, especially healthcare workers to the dangers of this disease.”
The DOH, they said, also delayed the release of information about the spike of new COVID-19 cases, from only 10 to 33 cases from March 8 to 10, or in a span of just three days, “prodding hospital and several LGUs to issue public advisories about their COVID-19 patients ahead of the DOH.”
The DOH also failed to provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers as evidenced by the need or private citizens to appeal for donations. The lack of PPE sets and medical supplies at the government-run National Center for Mental Health led to 34 of its staff members to test positive for the virus, with 297 personnel, including 50 doctors, to become persons under investigation and another 181 became persons under monitoring.
The lack of PPE at the NCMH was disclosed by Clarita Avila, NCMH chief administrative officer, who was allegedly threatened with transfer to another health facility because of her exposé.
The senators said Duque lacked foresight in stockpiling PCR-based testing kits, which the World Health Organization said is the most accurate test for COVID-19.
In a Senate hearing before the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, the DOH admitted it only had around 2,000 test kits on hand.
Duque also shot down the idea of having rapid test kits for mass testing but the President countermanded the guidelines when he ordered presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez, chief implementer of the National Task Force COVID-19, to immediately purchase 2 million rapid test kits.
The health secretary was slammed, among others, also for saying the country has a relatively “low” number of COVID-19 cases compared to rich countries, and saying “we have done better in containing the spread of the virus.”
“In truth, however, we are lagging behind other nations in terms of testing capacity and as of this writing, the country ranks first with the most number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia despite the fact that we have yet to roll out mass testing, having tested only 38,103 individuals,” the resolution said.
Duque, during the teleconference, said the entry of the virus in the Philippines was delayed for a month “and no less than the World Health Organization, itself, had cited the Philippines for being one of the countries that did not report any case of COVID-19 for more than three weeks and in fact to be exact, four weeks.”
House deputy minority leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate supported the call for Duque’s resignation, saying he “is emblematic of the inefficiency, lack of coherence in the Duterte administration’s lethargic response to the crisis brought by the COVID-19.”
“His March 11 admission before the House committee on health hearing on COVID of his failure to declare a health epidemic as early as January 31 is, in fact, one of the major setbacks why the Philippines was caught gravely unprepared to deal with the pandemic,” Zarate said.
He said Duque’s failure, and, in general and the earlier “nonchalant and dismissive” attitude of the Duterte administration in the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, are the reasons the Philippines is now number one in Southeast Asia in terms of COVID-10 cases and fatalities.
“After his March 11 admission of failure, Duque could have subsequently taken a chance to redeem himself, but, he again failed in bringing DOH as a leading agency to combat this modern health scourge,” said Zarate. “If Duque heeds this call, we look forward to a health czar that will always prioritize the interests of our people and country, rather than the expediency of some political and economic interests.” — With Wendell Vigilia