A youth group on Saturday rejected Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque’s claim that the Philippines has not surpassed Indonesia as the Southeast Asian country with the most coronavirus cases.
Akbayan Youth chair Dr. RJ Naguit pointed to how the additional daily COVID-19 cases have been “breaking records” and “surpassing predictions” by health experts.
“The numbers don’t lie,” Akbayan Youth chair Dr. RJ Naguit said. “There’s no use debating data from the World Health Organization (WHO) when it’s very clear that the government’s failure to plan led to more Filipinos getting the virus.”
Last Friday, Roque downplayed news reports that the Philippines had more COVID-19 cases than Indonesia, explaining that the country recorded most cases in the region because of its increased testing capacity.
He explained that the country has three times more testing than Indonesia to detect people with the deadly disease.
As of August 6, there were 119,640 cases for the Philippines compared to Indonesia’s 118,753 cases. The country’s tally has soared past 120,000 the following day.
Naguit said the infections are expected to continuously pile up as the Department of Health (DOH) remains with no concrete plan to contain the outbreak.
“We have the world’s longest lockdown and we are still waiting for the DOH to release a plan to meet the indicators and targets they set for themselves. If the goal is 100 percent accomplishment, the DOH should tell us the current baseline,” he said.
”The DOH should show how it intends to implement its recalibrated strategy, especially in ensuring that patients will have zero out-of-pocket expenses and no cases of patients stigmatized in communities,” he added.
The group also highlighted the government’s National Action Plan which should align with DOH initiatives towards a more efficient implementation of COVID-19 strategies.
““Failing to plan is planning to fail. And failure in a pandemic means loss of lives. Our pandemic responses are long overdue. We need measures that protect Filipinos and we need them now,” Naguit said.