MANILA –Malacañang slammed Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon for calling the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) as a failure.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a television interview yesterday that the opposition senator should stop politicizing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
“I don’t think we failed; for as long as we did not meet the 3.5 [million cases] projection of [the] UP [University of the Philippines]. And UP has been very good [in] their forecast,” Roque told CNN Philippines.
“For as long as we’re minimizing death rates, I think we have succeeded. And there’s no way I can change that position because one life loss is too much,” added Roque, who also serves as IATF-EID spokesperson.
“We will always have different points of view, particularly those coming from the opposition, and I think they’re resorting to politicking stories. The appeal of the President is to concentrate on the COVID-19, set aside politicking for the time being which I think is a very wise policy,” he further said.
Drilon said in a separate television interview earlier in the day that IATF-EID did not properly handle the public health crisis as infections in the country continue to climb.
“[Department of Health] Secretary (Francisco) Duque today lacks credibility to be able to command people to do things and he cannot influence decisions,” Drilon said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
“On the other hand, I don’t see any of the economic team in the IATF deliberations, maybe they are somewhere there in the background but given the effect of the pandemic in our economy, they should be in the forefront together with our health sector,” he further said.
Based on the latest data from the Department of Health, the Philippines has recorded 70,764 COVID-19 cases with 23,281 recoveries and 1,837 fatalities./PN
