MANILA, Philippines — The OCTA Research group has rejected the request of presidential spokesman Harry Roque for them to communicate privately their recommendations to the government on how to respond to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
Political science professor Ranjit Singh Rye, a member of the group, said they would continue releasing to the public their regular monitoring of the pandemic situation in the country and their policy recommendations to the government.
“We understand the position of the spokesperson on this issue. The idea of managing communications during this crisis is really a challenge,” Rye said in an interview with The Chiefs on One News/TV 5 Wednesday night.
“(But) after much discussion… majority of us agreed that we will continue what we have started,” he said, referring to the members of OCTA Research, an independent group of academics from the University of the Philippines and the University of Santo Tomas.
Explaining their decision to continue with the public release of their reports, Rye said their group believes they are accountable to the Filipino people.
Roque has urged the group to refrain from making recommendations publicly, particularly those involving the implementation of stricter quarantine restrictions on some areas.
He said experts are not being curtailed over their right to inform the public about their findings on COVID-19 but the matter of classifying quarantine status should be left to President Duterte.
“It’s the same reason why the Metro Manila governors, although they decide on certain matters and recommend to the IATF, keep their recommendations private,” he said, referring to the processes followed by local executives when it comes to giving their recommendations to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
“It’s the same reason why the IATF, consisting of doctors, statisticians, mathematicians, health economists, sociologists, political scientists coming together to address the issue of pandemic, privately recommend quarantine classifications to the President,” he added.
While experts can go public with their opinions, Roque noted Duterte bases his decision on many other factors that affect the economy and the entire country.
“Number one, it’s the President that makes the decision. So, you don’t really need to address your recommendations to anyone else but to the person who will make the decision,” he stressed.
Rye said he discussed the matter with Roque, whom he said “gave very good suggestions to improve the way we are going to present our reports and monitors.”
While they are willing to adjust to the suggestions, the academic expert said “nothing will change” on how they release their reports.
Education aspect
Rye also noted the education aspect of what they are doing, saying the information they provide informs and empowers the citizens.
“The better informed these citizens are, the more likely they’ll be able to assess not just risks and also behave accordingly and contribute positively to the fight against COVID-19. Our clientele is the Filipino people. We are accountable to them and our job here when we started this is really to contribute to the collective fight against COVID-19,” he pointed out. With more sectors reopening in different parts of the country, Rye said a surge in viral transmissions is not a “question of if but when and how much.”
To address this, Rye reiterated their latest recommendation for the government to adopt a set of criteria that will serve as triggers for local government units to impose stricter quarantine measures. These criteria, he added, would serve as a “circuit breaker” to minimize transmissions in case of surge of new cases. – Christina Mendez