Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Monday lamented the circulation of his tweet where he suggested that “men in white talk a lot,” an apparent swipe at the medical doctors who earlier called for respite amid the surging number of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) cases in the country.
(PCOO / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
“They are losers waiting to screenshot every tweet they can twist to their own dastardly ends. What a life,” Locsin said on his Twitter post.
Locsin’s latest brush with angry netizens began early Monday morning when he reacted to a news report pertaining to the medical community’s reported conclusion that the country is not winning the war against COVID-19.
As opposed to the men in white, Locsin instead credited the “men in olive” for getting the job of fighting the pandemic done. Olive is the color shade of the military uniform.
“The war has been mainly concluded by doctors. Successes as they are have been initiated, conceived and enforced only by soldiers. The men in white talk a lot. The men in olive get a lot done. Generals Año, Galvez, Bautista, take a bow,” Locsin said in his social media post.
Known for his often sarcastic and profanity-laden tweets, the DFA secretary blamed netizens who “misread” his post.
“Knew this would be misread. If you bother to look at all my posts, I always support frontliners, just ask nurses. When I say men in white I always refer to know-it-alls in charge who talk much and do nada, not frontliners who have no time to do anything else but save lives,” he said.
President Duterte on Sunday placed Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal back under the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from August 4 to 18 in response to the appeal made by the medical community to give them “time to rest” and for government to “recalibrate its strategies.”