It’s time for Duque to go

The Philippine Star wrote that President Rodrigo Duterte is reportedly scouting for somebody to replace Health Secretary Francisco Duque III amid calls for his resignation by members of the Senate and other sectors of society due to his handling of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In all honesty, when this pandemic was reported to our nation, I must admit that there was not a single person -- from President Duterte down to the lowest LGU leader -- who had the slightest experience handling such crisis.

So when a good number of senators found their voice and demanded the resignation of Secretary Duque (even if they really had no evidence to show except that they did not like certain things he had done), I attacked those senators and defended Duque. I know he wasn’t doing things that people wanted him to do, but like I said, no one had any experience in how to handle this COVID-19. So when President Duterte created the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), we followed him to the letter. After all, we know that the president would always consider the plight of the Filipino people.

But like I said, it wasn’t a perfect scheme. For instance, in early March and April, Central Visayas had zero people infected, except in Dumaguete City. Now it can be told, it was because we did not have testing kits, meaning no testing were done at that time, that we had no way of finding out whether people were contaminated. If far-flung areas like Mt. Province had zero infection, it is because they had no testing kits in those areas.

During those months, I had been asking the DOH-7 headed by Director Dr. Jaime Bernadas or the Cebu City Health Office headed by Dr. Daisy Villa what Cebu’s fatality rate was. They never cared to answer me. I tried calling the top health officials for an interview on my TV show and they refused to be interviewed. Where they too busy or scared to say something wrong?

Then suddenly, a week ago, Dr. Bernadas released a statement that other illnesses such as dengue and tuberculosis even infected and killed more people than COVID-19. In short, Dr. Bernadas was saying that COVID-19 isn’t something we should only be afraid of. Just on dengue fever alone, Cebu City registered 1,142 cases with a total of six deaths from January 1 to May 9, 2020. Mandaue City had 359 cases and one death, while Talisay City had 156 cases and zero death. For its part, Lapu-Lapu City had 689 cases with zero death. Since we went on ECQ, Cebu City had 11 deaths due to COVID-19 and just on the dengue fever alone, there were already six deaths in the city. Yet is not even dengue fever season yet.

A July 2019 report by Rappler showed the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) had said that Cebu province had the highest number of dengue cases in the Visayas with 5,935, followed by Iloilo with 5,327, and Negros Occidental with 3,266. Although this is mainly attributed to Cebu's being the most populated island, Cebu City, through Councilor David Tumalak, called for more vigilance by local officials. Today, the total fatality rate for COVID-19 in the country is 865 deaths. This is nothing compared to the deaths we had due to the dengue fever.

So when I read the report that President Duterte was looking for a replacement for Secretary Duque, it only shows that the president must have heard that so many people were no longer satisfied with Duque’s work in the DOH. Add the fact that he told a press conference last week that we are now on the second wave of the COVID-19, which was then publicly refuted by Press Secretary Harry Roque, who said we are still on the first wave.

The DOH later apologized for the confusion caused by Secretary Francisco Duque III's announcement. Special Assistant to the Health Secretary Beverly Ho confirmed in an online briefing that the Philippines is still in the first wave of the outbreak, as earlier clarified by Roque. Now you know why President Duterte is looking for a replacement for Duque.

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