PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte didn’t mean to shrug off the magnitude of the COVID-19 global pandemic to the country, says presidential spokesperson Harry Roque a day after the President’s comment that went trending on social media.
“Hindi minamaliit ng President ang paghihirap ng sambayanan. Ang sinasabi po niya, babangon po tayo, at malapit na po ‘yan at parating na ang mga bakuna. Ang sinasabi niya, temporary po ‘yan, ‘di yan forever, lilipas din ‘yan,” Roque was quoted as saying during the televised press briefing moderated by Undersecretary Rocky Ignacio.
The Philippines, which has been logging an average of 4,000 COVID-19 cases per day for the past week, has started its COVID-19 vaccination program on March 1, using donated vaccines from the World Health Organization’s COVAX facility.
The country’s donated vaccine supply from Sinovac and AstraZeneca is not even enough to inoculate 1.7 million health workers in two doses.
The Palace spokesperson insisted that Duterte was just trying to lift the morale of the Filipinos amid the pandemic and that the President is sad over the 12,000 plus casualties and the millions who lost their jobs amid the government imposed restriction to prevent the spread of the deadly virus from Wuhan, China.
“Ang sinasabi ng Presidente, patuloy naman pong nabubuhay ang Pilipinas sa gitna ng COVID. Ikinalulungkot natin ang mga nawalan ng trabaho, namatay pero by and large, ang sinasabi niya ay compared with other countries. We have been spared from even more deaths experienced by wealthier, highly developed countries which have more health care resources,” Roque added.
In view of the 4,000 weekly infection tally, the Department of Health has recorded a total of 626,893 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country. Of this figure, 12,837 died.