Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Tuesday lamented the worsening COVID-19 situation in the country and blamed Health Secretary Francisco Duque III’s “poor health management” performance for the thousands of COVID-19 deaths that have resulted from it.
“His lack of urgency has led the country down a road paved with literal deaths of our citizens,” he said during a hearing of the Senate Committee of the Whole on alleged corruption at the Philippine Health Insurance Corp (PhilHealth).
He also cited Duque’s recent publicity stint in which he distributed washable face masks to thousands of people.
“When the Health secretary spends official time handing out washable face masks, acting like a candidate for office, instead of the country’s top Health official in the middle of a health emergency, we really have a problem.”
Drilon noted that in the first quarter of 2020, the Health chief was “reluctant” to ban Chinese nations from coming to the Philippines despite the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China.
The first cases of the virus in the country were travelers from Wuhan, where the disease had originated.
“This was even after local quarantine authorities stopped 5 Chinese tourists with fever from entering ports in Kalibo and Cebu,” Drilon said.
“As late as March 6, the Secretary of Health was still advising the general public not to wear face masks,” he said.
Duque refuted these claims, and told senators that he shares their “endeavor of holding accountable public officers and upholding public office as a public trust.”
“I am unflinching in my battles not only to protect my character as a public servant, but also in the fight to implement President Rodrigo Duterte’s global vision for genuine universal health care access and to ensure we come out of the pandemic healthy as a nation,” he said.
