Vice President Leni Robredo has said that overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic should be the top priority of the Philippines.
In her own report to the nation on Tuesday, which came after President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his final State of the Nation Address, she said that pandemic should be the priority.
During the “Ulat ni VP Leni” which was live-streamed on Facebook, she said, “There should be no other priority but the pandemic and its effects. We need all hands on deck and laser-like focus. This should be mirrored in our budgets, in the agenda of every meeting within government, in every memo cascaded down the bureaucracy.”
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The pandemic has brought down the economy last year to its worst level since World War II and left millions jobless while taking a heavy toll on the country’s health system.
Robredo said that the government’s COVID-19 response leaves much to be desired after Duterte was criticized for not disclosing a detailed plan to end the COVID-19 crisis in the Philippines in his last SONA on Monday.
President had admitted in his speech he does not “know what to do” with the COVID-19 crisis at home and has to “listen to” the task force on COVID-19.
Robredo called for unity in the fight against the ongoing health crisis.
“We’ve come to notice how, whenever problems arise, the first impulse of some is to look for a culprit, to look for a suspect to arrest, or to single out the next critic whom trolls can attack,” she said.
“This has to stop. We are in the midst of a crisis. No one else but us gets infected, no one else but us suffers, no one else but us gets stalled on the road to progress.”
“A challenge faced by one is a challenge faced by all; to neglect one means neglecting all, and to help one is to ease suffering for all,” she said.
Robredo said her office had to “accomplished so much” despite its limited budget and political machinery. Her office has launched the Bayanihan e-Skwela, an online video series helping teachers and parents as the country’s education system shifted to distance learning; sikap.ph, a jobs-matching platform for blue collar workers; and iskaparate.com, which brought small businesses online.
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VP Robredo asserted her recommendations of having an integrated “system for testing, tracing, and treatment; faster vaccine rollout; allocating revenues from the so-called sin tax law towards pandemic needs; and offering aid and training opportunities to those who lost their jobs.”
The government must also pay its debts to hospitals for continued operations, proper enforcement of the Universal Healthcare law, and the passage of Bayanihan 3, the stimulus package aimed to address the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, she said .
“Our point: If it hasn’t been done yet, begin; if it’s already being done, intensify. There is no debate as regards the reality: Much is left to do to address, and lift ourselves up from this pandemic,” she said.
So far over 1.5 million infections have been reported in the Philippines making it one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in Southeast Asia amid the threat of the virulent Delta variant.
The country has administered more than 17 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and over 6 million people or 10.50 percent of its year-end minimum target have so far been fully vaccinated. (AW)
