{"id":256071,"date":"2020-05-26T00:33:28","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T04:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=256071"},"modified":"2020-05-26T00:33:28","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T04:33:28","slug":"prrd-takes-full-responsibility-for-purchase-of-medical-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/05\/26\/prrd-takes-full-responsibility-for-purchase-of-medical-supplies\/","title":{"rendered":"PRRD takes full responsibility for purchase of medical supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte holds a meeting with members of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) at the Malago Clubhouse in Malaca\u00f1ang on May 25, 2020. ACE MORANDANTE\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte said he would take “full responsibility” for ordering the immediate procurement of medical supplies used in the government’s fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) health crisis.<\/p>\n

In a meeting with top government officials late Monday night, Duterte bared that he asked Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to speed up the purchase of supplies during the “early days” of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would listen to Secretary Duque. But I gave him the instruction and I admit it in public now, it\u2019s being\u2026\u00a0Sabi ko sa kanya<\/em>\u00a0(I told him), \u2018do everything you can\u2019.\u00a0Sabi niya<\/em>, \u2018there\u2019s so many proposition\u2019. \u2018I do not care. If it\u2019s not cheap, if it is expensive, go — just go ahead and do something about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Duterte said he had to make a decision, rather than stay \u201cboxed in a corner\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGusto ko lang malaman ng sambayanang Pilipino na<\/em>\u00a0(I just want my fellow Filipinos to know) I take full responsibility,\u00a0na ang utos ko na mag — dalian mo<\/em>\u00a0(that my order was to act quickly),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He recalled how he previously said that it did not matter to him how the funds for the supplies would be sourced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember saying it. I do not care whether you go and steal, borrow or kill a person to get what — what needs to be done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Sen. Panfilo Lacson questioned the purchase of supplies including personal protective equipment (PPE) and swabbing system used in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests since they were more expensive than the ones bought by the private sector.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Duterte ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to investigate the overpricing of Covid-19 testing kits by a local supplier \u201cvery carefully\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNBI should study the matter very, very carefully\u00a0kasi alam mo…itong mga p*t*ng*n*ng mga negosyanteng \u2018to<\/em>\u00a0(because you know, these businessmen) whether it\u2019s really an issue of humanity and their greed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

‘Don’t be touchy’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Duterte, meanwhile, gave Duque advice on how to handle criticism after the latter’s statement that the country is now experiencing its “second wave” of Covid-19 infections which was rejected by some Cabinet officials.<\/p>\n

Some senators and groups have criticized Duque’s handling of the\u00a0pandemic and called for his resignation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlam mo, huwag kang masyadong ano dito<\/em>\u00a0(You know don\u2019t be too) — touchy\u00a0sa mga<\/em>\u00a0(on) issues because always there will be pros and cons,\u201d he told Duque during the same meeting.<\/p>\n

He said everyone\u2019s opinion deserved to be heard because it was part of a \u201cdemocracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakinggan na lang natin<\/em>\u00a0(Let\u2019s just listen to them) because this is a democracy. But democracy there is the favor of attacks, issues plus attacking the guy personally\u00a0ganun<\/em>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Duterte said he understood Duque\u2019s situation, but told him to stand by his statements even if they were unpopular.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlam ko ikaw<\/em>\u00a0(I know) you are hard-pressed and I know your situation. You just tell us if that\u2019s the — if that is that the one that\u2019s in your — the gray matter between your ears.\u00a0Ngayon kung ayaw ninyong maniwala, bahala kayo basta ito \u2018yung akin<\/em>\u00a0(Now, if they don\u2019t want to listen, never mind them, that\u2019s what I think),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said it was all right to admit mistakes, especially if they were done without malice.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe you should adopt that kind of attitude. So be it. If I committed the wrong, as long as there is no malice there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Before giving his piece of advice, Duterte asked Duque to explain which wave of infection the country was currently in.<\/p>\n

“Are we on the second, third, fourth, or fifth wave?\u00a0O<\/em>\u00a0no wave at all?” Duterte asked.<\/p>\n

Duque told Duterte that the country is still on “the first major wave of sustained community transmission”.<\/p>\n

He explained that his earlier pronouncement about the country being on the second wave was based on an article that was published by epidemiologist Dr. John Wong of the EpiMetrics.<\/p>\n

“Dr. John Wong sits as one of the expert advisers of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Disease. And to him, as an epidemiologist, a top epidemiologist, he considers the three first cases in the Philippines, although imported, would represent a minor wave.\u00a0Tapos nagkaroon po tayo<\/em>\u00a0ng<\/em>\u00a0(Then we had a) lull of about a month, the whole of February. And then March\u00a0nagkaroon ho tayo ng mga umpisang<\/em>\u00a0(we started to have) reported cases,” he said.<\/p>\n

There are currently 14,319 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country, with 873 deaths and 3,323 recoveries as of May 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte said he would take “full responsibility” for ordering the immediate procurement of medical supplies used in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":256072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256071","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\/256071","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256073,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256071\/revisions\/256073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}