MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte advised Vice President Leni Robredo to avoid making the situation in the country worse amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Please do not add fuel to the fire. You will just destroy the government,” Duterte told Robredo in his taped public address aired on state-run PTV-4 on Tuesday morning.
Earlier, Robredo, a vocal critic of the Duterte administration, raised the issue of confidence amid the national health emergency.
In a video posted on her official Facebook page on Monday, Robredo said: “no one is at the helm, no direction, no clear horizon as to when and how this pandemic will be addressed.”
She then called on her fellow Filipinos to “expect and demand more” from the country’s leaders.
Duterte lamented that Robredo tends to incite hatred against the government.
“Itong sinasabi ni Leni na kung ‘di gawin ng gobyerno, gagawin ng tao… panahon ito ng pandemic, desperado ang tao… dadagdag kayo, wala naman kayo basehan,” Duterte said.
As of Monday, the Philippines has logged a total of 194, 252 confirmed Covid-19 cases, with 132,042 recoveries and 3,010 fatalities.
Duterte reassured the public that the government is exhausting all efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
“We will also continue to respond to the arising challenges in our pandemic, recalibrating our strategies, if we must, based on science and data,” he said. (With PNA/PN)
