Senator Manny Pacquiao on Monday said the Philippine government has mismanaged its response to the COVID-19 pandemic and failed to resolve the health crisis.
Pacquiao, once an ally of the Duterte administration, lamented that the COVID-19 situation in the country only got worse.
“Sa tingin ko, hindi naman na resolba ang pandemya. Lalo pang lumala. Pataas ng pataas ang bilang nga mga cases ng infected (I think, we were not able to resolve the pandemic. It even got worse. The number of cases of infected is only getting higher and higher),” Pacquiao said in an interview on Teleradyo.
“Talagang mismanaged. I’m sorry to say this but yan yung nararamdaman ko (It’s really mismanaged. I’m sorry to say this but that is what I truly feel),” he added.
Pacquaio, a party stalwart of the Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban (PDP-Laban), is now at odds with the Duterte administration after he exposed corruption within the Department of Health (DOH) and other key government agencies.
The senator reiterated he now feels vindicated over his exposes following the Commission on Audit’s (COA) release of its 2020 audit report showing the discrepancies on how the DOH used its multi-billion COVID-19 response funds.
At this point, Pacquiao said the government should have focused on vaccinating Filipinos to reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, and as variants of the disease starts to spread in the communities.
“Marami tayong dapat pagtuunan. Dapat mag focus tayo sa massive vaccination, dahil yan ang nakikita ko sa ibang bansa (We have a lot to focus on. We need to focus on massive vaccination because that is what I see other countries are doing),” he said.
“Back to normal na ang pamumuhay nila dahil ang focus nila is to vaccinate the people (They are now back to normal lives because their focus is to vaccinate the people),” he pointed out.