Presidential aspirant Vice President Leni Robredo still finds the Duterte administration's coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response "very wanting" despite the huge decrease in daily fresh cases of the deadly illness.

Speaking in a press conference Friday, Nov. 5 in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Robredo acknowledged the plummeting cases of COVID-19 but at the same time noted that another disruptive case surge could take place.

"The lessons are very clear. Ngayon, mababa ulit iyong cases pero hindi dapat tayo magkampante. Lasi kapag iyong cases natin every now and then magkakaroon tayo ng surge, sino ba iyong kawawa? (Right now the daily cases are low again but we shouldn't be complacent. Because if we experience a surge now and then, who will be the ones to suffer?)" the lady official said.

"So para sa akin, ang COVID-19 response ng national government is very wanting. And obligasyon natin na punahin iyong pamahalaan kasi ang nagsa-suffer naman tayo lahat, eh (So for me, the national government's COVID-19 response is very wanting. Our obligation is to call our the government, because every one of us will suffer)," Robred said.

Government officials are on a high following the lowering of alert level in the National Capital Region (NCR) from alert level 3 to alert level 2. They have also repeatedly touted the drop in daily fresh cases of COVID-19, which reached as low as 1,591 cases last Wednesday.

The government's pandemic task force has attributed this to the high vaccination rate of NCR, the center or commerce in the country.

"Lahat ng (Among all the) international bodies who assessed COVID-19 response initiatives of many different nations, naka-ilan na, parati tayong huli (there have been many and we are always rated last)," noted the opposition leader.

"Parati tayong nama-mark na we are (We are always marked as) the least resilient and this is something that we should not be proud," Robredo said.

"Para sa akin, maraming nang—noong nag-uumpisa siguro hindi pa natin alam kung papaano mag-respond, pero (For me, there have been a lot--at first we didn't know how to respond to it, but) we have a lot of best practices from where we can derive a lot of lessons from na gagayahin na lang natin (we just need to copy them)," she said.

"That is why I always say that if given the chance, if given the chance to be president in 2022, the first thing that I will do is to control the pandemic and mitigate the effects of the pandemic kasi hindi tayo makaka-move on, eh (because we won't be able to move on). Hindi tayo makaka-move on kung every few months, nagsu-surge tayo (We won't be able to move on if we will have a surge every few months)," she further said.

Robredo had earlier revealed her COVID-19 response plan to the public.