{"id":268876,"date":"2020-09-16T05:43:13","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T09:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=268876"},"modified":"2020-09-16T05:43:13","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T09:43:13","slug":"sc-junks-suit-seeking-free-mass-testing-for-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/16\/sc-junks-suit-seeking-free-mass-testing-for-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"SC junks suit seeking free mass testing for Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_239619\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-239619\" style=\"width: 720px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/SC-facade-June-19_5b28a08f669b72_83636362.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-239619\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/SC-facade-June-19_5b28a08f669b72_83636362.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"377\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/SC-facade-June-19_5b28a08f669b72_83636362.jpg 720w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/SC-facade-June-19_5b28a08f669b72_83636362-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-239619\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">FILE: Facade of Supreme Court of the Philippines (PNA photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed a petition for mandamus seeking to compel the government to implement free mass testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the country.<\/p>\n<p>In a four-page resolution dated September 1 and released on Wednesday, the high court said the petitioners, among other things, &#8220;failed to exhaust administrative remedies&#8221;, adding that &#8220;a plain and speedy remedy exists&#8221; for their requests for information under existing laws, particularly Exec. Order No, 2. s 2016, which operationalizes the people&#8217;s right to information.<\/p>\n<p>The court said &#8220;without a demonstration that an official in the executive branch failed to perform a mandatory, nondiscretionary duty, courts have no authority to issue a writ of mandamus, no matter how dire the emergency&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It explained that the writ of mandamus sought by the petitioners &#8220;is an appropriate remedy only where the law prescribes and defines the duty to be performed with such precision and certainty as to leave nothing to the exercise of discretion or judgment&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The job of the court is to say what the law is, not dictate how another branch of government should do its job,&#8221; the court said.<\/p>\n<p>The high court turned down the petition filed by the Citizens Urgent Response to End Covid-19 led by its spokesperson, former Social Welfare and Development secretary Judy Taguiwalo, Coalition for the People&#8217;s Right to Health Convenor, Dr. Raymond Joshua L. San Pedro, and several others.<\/p>\n<p>The petitioners called for a &#8220;proactive&#8221; mass testing, ramp up contact tracing, and release accurate information on the country&#8217;s status in its fight against Covid-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA\u00a0\u2013 The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed a petition for mandamus seeking to compel the government to implement free mass &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":239619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-benjamin-pulta","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268876","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=268876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268878,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268876\/revisions\/268878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}