By Hannah Torregoza The Department of Health (DOH) should stop using hospitals and laboratories as “scapegoats” whenever it is criticized for its shortcomings, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said on Monday. Sen. Franklin Drilon
(Senate of the Philippines / MANILA BULLETIN) Drilon said it has become the habit of the agency to blame hospitals and laboratories whenever the public finds loopholes and corruption in the COVID-19 policies being implemented by the DOH. “They are being thrown under the sea. The DOH claims that the laboratories report to them late. But I have received reports that their turnaround time is actually good,” Drilon said. “Where there is a bottleneck in the reporting of cases that results in ‘late’ cases, is it really the laboratories reporting late or DOH unable to validate the cases in a timely manner?” he asked. The DOH had earlier said it will now change the method of reporting of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines saying it will also now report on the breakdown of new cases being reported for the day, both the number of newly validated cases and those that were delayed. The agency made the move a day after it reported the highest single day jump to 539 cases and as the National Capital Region (NCR) eases into general community quarantine or GCQ. But Drilon questioned the basis of the DOH for disaggregating cases in the reporting of confirmed COVID-19 cases, saying the health department may have been underreporting these cases all along. On Sunday, the DOH reported that there are 862 new infections, 16 fresh cases, and 846 late cases bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines to 18,086. “What is the basis for disaggregating cases and how does that affect our interpretation of flattening of the curve?” he asked. “Has the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) considered these figures in its decision to shift to GCQ?” he added. He said there are several complaints, not only from the public, but also from laboratories themselves, which are confused with DOH’s new method of classifying cases into “fresh” and “late” cases. “If the DOH could not provide logical explanations for this, except for putting the blame on laboratories, then there is a reason to believe that it is underreporting COVID-19 cases,” he said. “That is not only counter-productive because hiding the real data cold be fatal,” he said. Drilon reiterated the need for the DOH to be transparent warning that “hiding the truth will only make things worse.” “One may learn a thing or two about transparency in the way South Korea and China handle the pandemic,” Drilon said. “South Korea has showed transparency since day one. It did not hide the real data from the people. It dealt with the pandemic with complete transparency and because of this, coupled with the government’s decisiveness, was able to contain the virus,” he said. Drilon said it can’t be denied that the China experience has shown that the lack of transparency could be fatal. “Honesty is the best policy here. Manipulating the data will not bring us anywhere. Magpakatotoo tayo (Let’s be honest here),”