President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has bared that the creation of the country's virology center is about to shape up.
"I have presented to the Congress, both Houses of Congress, the proposed creation — the creation of the Virology Center of the Philippines," the President said during his speech at the 15th Philippine National Health Research System Week celebration on Thursday, Aug. 11.
Marcos said this is in order to consolidate "in a better way all of the disparate research, all the different sources of knowledge, all the different sources of research and new data."
"We can put it together and be more coordinated as opposed to what we had to work with during the pandemic," Marcos added.
The President said he also presented to the lawmakers the creation of the country's Disease Control Center which aims to prepare the country in dealing with health crisis.
"So these are the efforts. We have been in consultation with the House of Representatives and the Senate to bring this — to create these agencies so that we can bring them to bear in what we are up to now continuing to have to fight," Marcos said.
The creation of both institutions were mentioned by Marcos during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) as an effort to better handle another Covid-like health crisis in the future.
READ MORE: Marcos thanks medical researchers’ efforts to contain Covid-19 pandemic