It has been more than five months already since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic hit the country but the administration’s response continues to fall short as the number of cases keeps on rising, Vice President Leni Robredo said yesterday.
Robredo said this is the reason why she gave her second public address last week — to propose solutions because the government’s response is clearly wanting as the country now has the highest number of cases in Southeast Asia.
“Ang daming namamatay, ang daming nagkakasakit (Many people are dying and are falling ill),” she said on her radio program Biserbisyong Leni aired over RMN-DZXL. “Nakikita natin iyong kakulangan ng response. Nakikita natin na talagang kulelat tayo (We can see the lack of response. We can see that we’re at the bottom of this fight against the virus).”
The country has more than 213,000 COVID cases (as of August 29), of which more than 76,000 are active and more than 3,400 have died.
The Vice President said she has been working quietly since March but she had to come out to help the administration by proposing solutions and “fill the shortcomings.” “They should be open to suggestions,” Robredo said.
Robredo questioned the government’s decision to place Metro Manila under the more lenient modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) at a time when the number of cases was shooting up. “For me, the response seems to be the opposite of what should be done. It’s getting lenient when the cases are high,” she said.
Robredo also reacted to President Duterte’s claim that she is only destroying the government by continuing to criticize it.
“Wala itong politika, Ka Ely, eh. Kasi kung politika iyong sadya natin, dapat noon pa, dapat hindi na natin sila binigyan ng pagkakataon na gawin iyong gagawin (There’s no politics here because if that’s what we want, we should have done it a long time ago and we shouldn’t have given them the chance to do what needs to be done),” she said.
Robredo said she meant well by making the suggestions which was the outcome of her previous meetings with a group of experts, including economists.
In her public address last week, the Vice President laid down a list of proposals to help the government address the pandemic, save the economy and restore hope among citizens.
The most important point she stressed is for the government “to go above and beyond to support and value our medical frontliners and hospitals, and to strengthening our national healthcare system.”
She said then that efficient and rapid data gathering and evidence-based decision making has to be in place to ensure extensive, efficient, and immediate turnover of COVID-19 tests results to slow down its spread.
The most recent 10.5 percent positivity rate, Robredo noted, is far from the less than five percent standard set by the World Health Organization.
