Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque lashed out during a Zoom conference after Dr. Maricar Limpin, president of the Philippine College of Physicians, pleaded with the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) to reconsider its decision to relax quarantine restrictions in Metro Manila due to the continuous rise of COVID-19 cases.
“We are begging you to please, please, place NCR and other places on ECQ. And we would like to request that it should be a hard ECQ, meaning to say it should be a ‘real ECQ,’ not the one we saw last August,” Dr. Limpin said.
In a video circulating online, Roque was seen enraged and with food crumbs on his face, while berating the doctors for expressing their demands towards the IATF. He pointed out that the group has “never said anything good about the government response.”
“We employed the entire government approach thinking about economic ramifications, thinking about the people (who) will go hungry. It does not mean that we care any less,” Roque added.
Roque also reiterated that the government has always considered steps to prevent the loss of lives in their decisions towards the pandemic response.
However, the government’s confusing decisions on pandemic policy contradict Roque’s words. The never ending imposition of ECQ, MECQ, GCQ, and other lockdown classifications, void of any medical or scientific basis, only serve as a band-aid solution.
While Roque berates doctors after obviously sipping boba tea, many health workers are yet to receive their meal allowances, hazard pay, and other benefits. On National Heroes Day and last September 1, healthcare workers from different hospitals around Metro Manila staged a protest clamoring for their demands to the Duterte administration.
Healthcare workers also called for the resignation of DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III due to the alleged corruption and misallocation of funds to both DOH and PhilHealth.
