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Duque a hero? PH's COVID-19 management a failure under his watch—Drilon
Duque a hero? PH's COVID-19 management a failure under his watch—Drilon
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Wednesday, May 5, rejected President Duterte’s pronouncement that Health Secretary Francisco Duque III is the “hero” behind the government’s response to the pandemic, saying the Philippine’s coronavirus (COVID-19) management is a failure under his watch.
“As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” Drilon said in an interview on ANC’s Headstart.
As far as he is concerned, Drilon said Duque should be blamed for the government’s failure to manage the pandemic right from the start when he failed to recommend the closure of borders to China when the pandemic first broke out on January last year.
The first recorded case in the Philippines, he pointed out, was the 38-year old woman from Wuhan, China who came to the country that month.
“Where are we today with leadership of Secretary Duque? As early as Jan. 30, 2020, we should have closed our border as what Vietnam and Taiwan did, we did not,” Drilon recounted.
“Number two, we dropped the ball as (Foreign Affairs) Secretary (Teodoro) Locsin said when we did not sign the confidentiality agreement demanded by Pfizer,” he pointed out.
Drilon is referring to Locsin’s earlier remark that the Philippines failed to get the 10 million doses of vaccines from US –based pharmaceutical company Pfizer because someone bungled the vaccine deal with Pfizer.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson later on disclosed it was Duque who failed to sign a confidentiality agreement with Pfizer.
The senator also blamed Duque for failing to give advance payment for the procurement of vaccines.
“Hence, we are at the end of the queue, insofar, as vaccine procurement is concerned,” he lamented.
The minority leader also lamented how Duque, as Department of Health (DOH) chief and chairperson of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), failed to put in place a tracking system for persons infected by the COVID-19.
“We have no tracking system. Our testing system is very deficient and expensive,” he said.
“So I will lay it on the table. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and we have failed insofar as the management of the pandemic is concerned,” the Senate minority chief reiterated.