{"id":251585,"date":"2020-04-08T05:20:39","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T09:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=251585"},"modified":"2020-04-08T05:20:39","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T09:20:39","slug":"duterte-never-downplayed-covid-19-threat-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/04\/08\/duterte-never-downplayed-covid-19-threat-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte never downplayed Covid-19 threat: Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte at the Malago Clubhouse in Malaca\u00f1ang on March 30, 2020. KING RODRIGUEZ\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte never downplayed the threat of the 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Malaca\u00f1ang said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made this remark after Duterte drew flak for saying that he warned the public about the Covid-19 threat \u201cat the start.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHindi naman po pinagwalang-bahala<\/em>\u00a0(The President didn\u2019t ignore it),\u201d he said in a virtual presser.<\/p>\n

Panelo said Duterte simply relied on advisories of the World Health Organization (WHO) allaying fears over Covid-19 since the country only had a few numbers of confirmed cases in February.<\/p>\n

He said Duterte expressed great concern when WHO started modifying advisories after declaring Covid-19 a public health emergency of international concern in January.<\/p>\n

In March, WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic which means a worldwide spread of a new disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cSi Presidente nun, sumusunod lamang siya sa takbo ng patakaran ng<\/em>\u00a0World Health Organization\u00a0at sa nakikita niya sa kaniyang kapaligiran<\/em>\u00a0(The President was only following the course of rules set by the World Health Organization and what he see around him),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said Duterte was only trying to ease anxiety amid the health crisis because the public was already starting to get hysterical.<\/p>\n

Health authorities reported the first cases of Covid-19 in the Philippines in January while the first local transmission was reported in early March.<\/p>\n

\u201cAyaw niya po lumikha ng masyadong<\/em>\u00a0anxiety\u00a0o pagkatakot, kaya sinabi niya \u2018yun<\/em>\u00a0(He didn\u2019t want to cause anxiety or fear, that\u2019s why he said that). Immediately after that,\u00a0gumawa na siya ng lahat ng kaparaanan<\/em>\u00a0(he started implementing measures),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the President immediately started to imposing measures, such as a travel ban to foreign countries and eventually local destinations, when the number of Covid-19 cases started to rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cNung makita niya na dumarating na yung unos nitong<\/em>\u00a0coronavirus,\u00a0gumawa na po siya ng lahat ng kaparaanan at nakita po natin bigla siyang nagkaroon ng<\/em>\u00a0lockdown (When he saw that the threat of coronavirus was coming, he implemented all measures, he even declared a lockdown),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed out that Duterte declared an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon to reduce the risk of catching and spreading the virus.<\/p>\n

Panelo admitted that there were lapses in the government\u2019s handling of the Covid-19 health crisis but appealed to the public to lessen criticism and instead provide helpful suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSana<\/em>\u00a0(I hope) at this time of our crisis,\u00a0yung pong mga pagpuna natin sa pamahalaan e wag na muna tayong maging masyadong mainit noon. Kumbaga nakaraan na yun ginagawan na ng paraan. Mas maganda magbigay tayo ng mungkahe nalang<\/em>\u00a0(let\u2019s not to be too hot over criticizing the government. There were lapses but that happened in the past and are already being addressed. It is better to give us suggestions),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last Monday, Duterte said he warned the public about the treat of Covid-19 “at the start” saying the pandemic would cause \u201csadness and fear\u201d among citizens struggling to recover from the crisis.<\/p>\n

“Itong<\/em>\u00a0Covid\u00a0na ito, ito talaga \u2018yung tunay na<\/em>\u00a0at the start\u00a0sinabi ko sa inyo bantay kayo dito, bantay tayo, talagang yayariin tayo nitong<\/em>\u00a0Covid\u00a0na \u2018to<\/em>\u00a0(This Covid, I said from the start you should watch out, we should stay vigilant because Covid will really affect us all),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte never downplayed the threat of the 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Malaca\u00f1ang said on Wednesday. Presidential Spokesperson …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":251176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251587,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251585\/revisions\/251587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}