MANILA—“As hot as the summer afternoon heat in General Santos City under the state of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is what I describe is the situation between the senate and Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III,” said Martin Abraham, a 60-year old taxi driver in General Santos City during a phone interview with Sandigan News. Aside from tuna and Senator Manny Pacquiao, the city is known for its sizzling summer seasons.
Abraham may be right as 14 senators, led by Senate President Vicente Sotto III, filed a resolution Wednesday seeking the “immediate resignation” of the DOH secretary over his performance in handing the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crisis gripping the country.
The said lawmakers signed Senate Resolution No. 362 which accused Duque’s alleged “failure of leadership, negligence, lack of foresight, and inefficiency in the performance of his mandate as the secretary of the DOH resulting in poor planning, delayed response, lack of transparency, and misguided and flip-flopping policies and measures in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic that endangered and continues to endanger the lives of our healthcare professionals, other frontliners, and the Filipino people.”
The resolution of the senate further read, “Knowing fully well the danger posed by the Covid-19 pandemic in the beginning of the year, Secretary Duque failed to put in place the necessary precautionary measures to lessen, if not at all prevent, the impact of this health crisis.”
Among those who filed the resolution aside from Senator Sotto are Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, Senators Sonny Angara, Nancy Binay, Grace Poe, Manny Pacquiao, Sherwin Gatchalian, Francis Tolentino, Joel Villanueva, Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Imee Marcos, Lito Lapid, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Panfilo Lacson.
The senators claimed the secretary is negligent by failing to immediately recommend a travel ban on China and even warned of the effects that might have caused in banning flights to and from that country during the session of the House of Representatives on January 29.
The lawmakers further nailed the secretary by saying, “Secretary Duque failed to alert the medical community and fundamentally, the public, that there were already patients admitted in health facilities exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms, insisting in his press conferences that the Philippines had zero cases of local transmission, thus exposing many Filipinos, especially healthcare workers to the dangers of this disease.”
Meanwhile Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea confirmed Thursday in a message to reporters that: “Yes. The President has made a decision for Health Secretary Duque to stay put,” Medialdea said. He continued that “the president also expressed his appreciation for the Senators’ gesture in giving him the opportunity to weigh his options on the performance of the Secretary of Health.” Secretary Duque cannot be reached for comment as of press time.
