Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic and after several lockdowns and pandemic policy changes, the country’s distinguished medical leaders united to call out the governments “incompetence, insensitivity and corruption.”
Over 300 doctors, medical leaders—who currently hold or previously held top posts at various medical and health organizations—and five former health secretaries signed their names on a manifesto expressing their collective call for an end to ineffective and corruption-ridden pandemic response.
The doctors made their sentiments known in the manifesto that came out as a full-page ad in the Philippine Daily Inquirer amid the ongoing Senate blue ribbon committee investigation into transactions between the Department of Health (DOH), Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) and Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corp.
Pharmally was a foreign-owned company that was set up in the Philippines in 2019 with capitalization of less than P600,000 and won up to P11 billion in COVID supply contracts from the PS-DBM on behalf of the DOH. (©Philippine Daily Inquirer 2021)
