By Genalyn Kabiling Health Secretary Francisco Duque III still enjoys the trust and confidence of President Duterte in containing the threat of the new coronavirus in the country despite criticisms on his leadership, a Palace official said Wednesday. Health Secretary Francisco Duque III
(Photo by Jansen Romero/ MANILA BULLETIN FILE) Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles defended Duque from "very unfair" allegations of failure of leadership, insisting there may have been lapses but this will be rectified by the health secretary. "With the situation, he's hands on with everything. He has done his job so far. The President still has trust and confidence in Secretary Duque,” Nograles said in an interview with reporters in Malacanang. "'Yung failure of leadership, I think, is a very unfair allegation. Maybe there are lapses but that will be rectified. In fact, Secretary Duque already said within two days, 100 percent yung contact tracing," he added. In a Senate hearing last Tuesday, Duque drew flak from some senators for the slow tracing of fellow passengers of a Chinese couple earlier confirmed to be infected with coronavirus. The health chief claimed that they were only able to trace 17 percent of the 331 passengers who shared the same flight of the Chinese couple. The airline firms were reportedly blamed for not sharing contact details of the passengers due to privacy laws. Nograles found ill-timed any call for Duque to resign over the alleged mishandling of the latest public health emergency. He said Duque and the rest of health workers are doing a tough job in preventing the virus from infecting more people. "At this point in time na umaarangkada naman at ginagawa ng DOH ang lahat (the DOH is doing everything), I think it's not the call of the time to do something as drastic as that. The situation that issue will be rectified. We have utmost trust and confidence in Secretary Duque that he can do more and perform more," he said. Nograles also expressed hope the public will continue to support the health workers as they move to contain the virus, instead of dwelling on the reported lapse on contact tracing. "Let's not take away all the other efforts the DOH family is doing. Let's not take away from them. Mahirap ang ginagawa ng health workers natin (The health workers are doing a difficult job). We have to understand there are a lot of details that need to be done considering the circumstances, the pressure, the timeline and everything else that's happening," he said.