Congress can’t be stopped from probing OCTA: Palace

MANILA – The Congress cannot be stopped should it decide to investigate the OCTA research group’s credibility, Malacañang said on Monday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this remark after leaders in the House of Representatives called for a probe into OCTA research group’s “qualifications, research methodologies, partnerships, and composition.”

“Congress has plenary powers to investigate in aid of legislation; hindi ninyo po mapipigilan ang Kongreso. So dapat maintindihan po iyan ng OCTA (you cannot stop the Congress. OCTA must understand that),” Roque said in a Palace press briefing.

Roque acknowledged lawmakers’ goal to probe qualifications of members of the OCTA research group.

“Ang sinabi naman ng mga kongresista ay nais nilang malaman iyong mga qualifications ng mga bumabasa ng datos (What congressmen are saying is they want to find out the qualifications of those reading data),” he said.

He agreed that rather than investigating their “conclusions”, it only made sense to look into the group’s qualifications.

“At tingin ko naman po as a lawyer, kapag mayroon kang expert evidence, expert witness, hindi ninyo po dini-dispute ang conclusion ng experts; ang idi-dispute ninyo po talaga ay iyong qualification niya as an expert (And I think that as a lawyer, if you have expert evidence or expert witness, you do not dispute the conclusion of experts. You dispute their qualifications as experts),” he added.

Lawmakers earlier filed a resolution seeking to investigate the OCTA researchers’ ties with the state-funded University of the Philippines (UP).

“There is a public health and public policy need to ensure the safety and security of the population during this pandemic, and that information being distributed is correct and is not irresponsibly and erroneously published,” the lawmakers said in the resolution.

Based on their website, OCTA describes itself as an “independent and interdisciplinary” organization composed of UP faculty members and alumni.

UP, for its part, said OCTA’s research team’s activities, have no connection to UP and are not “sponsored, endorsed, or organized by the university.”

The call for a probe came as Edsel Salvaña, director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the National Institutes of Health-UP Manila, refuted OCTA’s projections of a surge in Metro Manila, saying that it was based on “incomplete” and “erroneous” data.