A new ‘orchestra’ member

This is supposed to be the last stretch, or eleven days exactly, up to the end of the extended enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) President Rodrigo Duterte ordered. As early as last week, there were a lot of rumors already that President Duterte is set to stretch the lockdown period in the wake of the still rising trend of cases of infection from the 2019 coronavirus disease, or COVID-19 for short. 

The Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) will meet today and discuss whether or not to extend again the ECQ as one of the major items of their agenda. In fact, President Duterte may just announce his decision tonight when he delivers his fourth status report to the Joint Oversight Congressional Committee on the implementation of the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act on COVID-19.

A week before the initial one-month lockdown lapsed last April 15, President Duterte decided to extend by another 15 days the Luzon-wide ECQ. So it is not farfetched to expect another extension, though we may see some changes on how the government will implement the next round of ECQ.     

As announced last Friday, the IATF – chaired by Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Dr. Francisco Duque III – will also tackle the proposed “modified” system of lockdown as being pushed by some of the economic managers of President Duterte. The most vocal ones who pushed for this proposal are Presidential adviser on economic affairs Jose “Joey” Concepcion III and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) director general Ernesto Pernia who, however, unexpectedly turned in his resignation letter effective last Friday.

In the sudden twist of events, 15 Senators a day earlier signed and passed a Senate Resolution demanding the immediate resignation of Duque. They got instead the resignation of Pernia. President Duterte, however, reiterated his trust and confidence on the leadership of Duque at the DOH. The President though assuaged the Senators that Duque would reach out to them about their concerns on how the government is handling the national campaign to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic contagion. 

On the other hand, President Duterte surprisingly accepted the immediate resignation of Pernia. On that same day, the President immediately named Department of Finance (DOF) Undersecretary Karl Kendric Chua as “acting” NEDA chief.

While it was Duque who is faced with resignation calls led by the Senators, it was Pernia who issued a brief press statement to announce his resignation from the Duterte Cabinet. 

The Senators scored Duque for the DOH’s failure to conduct intensive contact tracing of potential COVID-19 infection spreaders after the first case of three Chinese tourists from Wuhan who came here in January and fell ill with COVID-19 infection. Senate president Vicente Sotto III cited there could have been more effective methods on contact tracing had only the national identification (ID) system they passed into law more than two years ago is already implemented. 

President Duterte shared the Senators’ lament but blamed leftists for stalling the national ID card system. Signed into law in August 2018, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has yet to implement the national ID card system. The PSA is one of its attached agencies under Pernia’s supervision at NEDA. 

Pernia cited “personal reasons” and differences with fellow economic managers on certain “development” issues with them. Pernia did not go into details or named who among his fellow economic advisers he tangled with on “development” issues. It is public knowledge though among the business and economic circles, Pernia took the opposite stand on a number of key policy issues with Finance Secretary Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez.

So it should not be a shocker if Chua – who headed the Strategy, Economics and Results Group at the DOF – was recommended by Dominguez. A “favorite” classmate of President Duterte, Dominguez got his wish granted. 

In a tele-conferencing interview last April 7, Pernia spoke against a rumored total lockdown purportedly being recommended to the President. The erstwhile Socio-Economic Planning Secretary warned that it would be more detrimental to the Philippine economy already reeling from many job and income losses since the Luzon-wide ECQ and replicated elsewhere around the country starting last March 15. Pernia suggested instead the adoption of “modified” lockdown during the extension until April 30 to allow the return of workers to rev back economic production.

But on the same day Pernia publicly issued his opinion on the matter, the President pushed ahead with the ECQ extension as recommended by the IATF, a move publicly extolled by Dominguez. Unlike Pernia, Dominguez is a member of the IATF. It took a few days later for the IATF to include agriculture workers to the ECQ exemption among the essential sectors as Pernia suggested. 

After his resignation was accepted, Pernia explained in the CNN interview why he opted out. “I wanted to stay on and continue the fight against COVID-19 but when the orchestra isn’t well orchestrated, there seems to be a problem,” the 76-year-old Pernia pointed out. 

Moving on, Chua will face the congressional Commission on Appointments once sessions resume on May 4. He would remain as “acting” NEDA director-general until then. Chua is no stranger to the lawmakers. He shepherded in Congress the comprehensive tax reform program of the Duterte administration, starting with the approval into law of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN). 

A 41-year-old technocrat, Chua comes in with impeccable academic and professional background. Chua has been working for ten years already at the World Bank (WB) when he accepted in 2016 the offer of Dominguez to try public service. 

With Chua as the “acting” NEDA chief and the newest member of the “orchestra,” there is infusion of a young blood in the Duterte economic team. They must now get their acts together and speak in unison once they agreed on policies and measures to avert the looming economic disaster in our country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.