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The alleged corruption issues came on the heels of an apparent lack of concrete plans of the government to curb the local transmission of the COVID-19, inadequate testing and contact tracing capacity, an overwhelmed health system, and the scant social protection for the poor and displaced workers.
With over a hundred thousand positive COVID-19 cases, the Philippines has reverted Metro Manila and neighboring provinces to a stricter lockdown for the next two weeks but critics say that without changes to the government’s pandemic control strategies, this would be useless.
“This should be a wake up call for the Duterte government. The press con itself is one big commentary on how the govt (mis)handled the COVID-19 response and on the poor and inadequate leadership of the Department of Health and IATF."
With the cases increasing, concerned government agencies are swamped with backlogs, particularly on validating COVID-19 cases and an overwhelmed public health system.
Mass testing, according to the petitioners, should be made free and accessible to all suspect cases, contacts of probable and confirmed cases, frontline healthworkers, and high-risk and vulnerable communities.
“This is not at all a rational solution to the problem. This move will further deplete our pool of physicians as more doctors will be exposed to the virus and its possible fatal consequences.”
With no salary and little assistance, some OFWs in the Middle East have resorted to scavenging for food.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, who heads the lead Philippine government agency in the fight against the pandemic, issued inaccurate statements and unreliable data, leaving Filipinos in doubt of his capacity to lead the country out of a public health emergency.
To save lives, the lawmakers said the government must recognize the extreme importance and urgency of mass testing along with medical solutions such as contact tracing, isolation, and treatment.
“The integrity of the data drops is particularly important given that no less than President Rodrigo Roa Duterte himself has said many times that the government’s decision on managing COVID-19 will be based on science.”
The survey revealed that health workers are working in “excessively long hours while earning very little pay.”
Citing medical studies, psychiatrist Dr. Reggie Pamugas said that work related stress, especially among journalists, is common. Around 86 to 100 percent of journalists are actually exposed to “potentially traumatic events over the course of their careers.”
“What we want to see is how this ECQ is being used to stop the spread of the virus and not just to incarcerate the people in their homes while the government is not making any effort to aggressively conduct mass testing.”
“The case numbers they are presenting is not accurate. How can you tell if the number of cases did not double today if the test result will come out in at least two weeks?”
Even before the pandemic, Maristela Abenojar of the Filipino Nurses United said nurses are already attending to 30 to as many as 60 patients per shift. This is a far cry from the ideal 1:12 ratio for ward patients and 1:1 for patients in intensive care.
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