Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon on Tuesday expressed regret for not signing the Senate resolution calling for the immediate resignation of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III that the Senate leadership initiated last April.
(Senate of the Philippines / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
At the resumption of the Senate’s hearing on the anomalies hounding the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), Drilon said he did not sign Senate Resolution No. 362, which was signed by 14 senators, even if he is from the opposition, because he wanted to give the health secretary a chance to prove he can efficiently lead the government’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I wanted to see him perform. But on the basis of what we have seen, the performance of Sec. Duque did not justify my non-signing, sad to say,” Drilon said.
“Your poor health management has resulted in the longest lockdown in the world. Unfortunately our secretary of health has failed to manage the pandemic and its curve,” the minority leader further said.
Duque was virtually present at the Senate committee of the whole’s hearing on the PhilHealth issues.
Drilon noted that COVID-19 has so far infected over 164,000 of our people, killed over 2,600 people, made over 7 million jobless/ 17.7% unemployment rate, and caused over 5 million families hungry.
He said Duque’s “do-not-panic” approach, and his lack of urgency to contain the COVID-19 pandemic at the early stages “has led the country down a road paved with literal deaths of our citizens”
“And that, Mr. President is unacceptable. Your failure to manage the health system has resulted to a great burden on PhilHealth,” the minority leader pointed out.
Drilon also questioned anew the stark contrast of Duque’s response to the COVID-19, with the decision of PhilHealth President General Ricardo Morales’ response to the dreaded disease.
He pointed out that during the Aug. 11, 2020 hearing, Morales justified the approval and downloading of funds for the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) scheme, saying PhilHealth was already in a “state of anxiety” and wanted to take preemptive actions against the pandemic to prepare hospitals.
But Drilon noted Duque—who chairs PhilHealth’s Board—did not share that same “sense of panic” expressed by Morales and merely tried to assuage the fears of a panicking public.
“By the end of January 2020, when there were already over 6,000 Covid-19 cases in China, the Health Secretary was still reluctant to recommend the ban of Chinese nationals from entering the country, citing serious ‘political and diplomatic repercussions’,” he said.
“’If we do this, then the concerned country — China in this case — might question why we're not doing the same for other countries that have reported confirmed cases of novel coronavirus.’ He even said, casually, that: ‘It is one of the possible options but not at this moment’,” Drilon stressed.
“No, Mr. President, we do not think the Chairman of the Board shared the same ‘anxiety’ with Mr. Morales in January 2020, because as late as March, 6, 2020, Mr. Duque was still advising the general public not to wear face masks: ‘Ulit-ulitin ko, pagka wala namang maysakit, hindi kailangan mag face mask.’ I do not even think that Mr. Duque was already in a ‘state of anxiety’ on March 9 when he thumbed down a lockdown proposal to contain community transmission of the disease,” he added.
Drilon said the health secretary deemed it best to “wait until there is evidence of sustained community transmission to trigger the community lockdown or community quarantine.”
“I want the Secretary to explain to all of us all these missteps and mismanagement,” the Senate minority chief said.