MANILA, Philippines (Update 2 11:07 a.m., March 23) — The director of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) is staying, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Monday morning.
“Dr. (Celia) Carlos will remain. I corrected that already,” Duque said in a phone interview.
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The health chief was reacting to the Department Order 2020-1011, a copy of which made rounds in social media on Sunday, supposedly appointing Health Assistant Secretary Nestor Santiago as officer-in-charge of RITM.
"The circulating issuance...is an erroneous draft of the document which was inadvertently posted but immediately taken down," the Department of Health (DOH) said in a separate statement.
RITM houses the country’s lone testing center for coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) in Muntinlupa, and many speculated that the order assigning Santiago as OIC, which essentially meant Carlos being booted out, was because Carlos refused to prioritize VIP patients in testing.
Duque, for his part, said a new department order will be issued to formalize Santiago's appointment to assist Carlos on improving the Philippines' testing capabilities.
“He (Santiago) is really put there as an oversight... His job is to help Dr. Carlos to expand the number of testing centers,” Duque clarified.
Senators, local officials and other public servants are being criticized for using their position to get personal access to COVID-19 testing even if they do not have symptoms of the disease, a strict qualification DOH has implemented in other patients.
Earlier, Duque justified the testing for officials, saying they are qualified under looser directions for testing that allow persons under investigation, even asymptomatic, to get tested. Rules had been revised late February as supply of testing kits get stretched from the number of PUIs.
After around 100,000 donated testing kits from China, South Korea and Brunei finally arrived over the weekend, the government is set to open five new testing centers across the archipelago this week to accelerate COVID-19 diagnosis.