Health Secretary Duque Denies Replacing Head Of RITM
DOH ISSUES – Health Secretary Francisco Duque III denies allegations of replacing the previous RITM head for not prioritizing politicians.
Over the weekend, social media was abuzz following a supposed leak that showed an appointment paper of Health Assistant Secretary Nestor Santiago replacing Dr. Celia Carlos as head of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
According to some supposed insiders, the Health chief gave the order after Carlos denied prioritizing politicians for COVID-19 testings. However, Duque denied these allegations.
According to the health chief, his executive assistant made a mistake. Additionally, he said that he merely ordered to give Santiago oversight powers.
Hindi, nagkamali ‘yan. Inamin na ‘yan ng aking head executive assistant. Ang nailagay nila ‘yung designation na director. Ang sinabi ko magkaroon ng oversight lamang para makatulong kay director Celia Carlos sa pagpapalawig ng testing capacity,
According to a report from ABS-CBN, Duque added that the current director “who was technically competent” is being overwhelmed.
I have no doubt about his technical expertise. Ang kailangan lang niya ‘yung management ng expansion ng test labs natin. So pinasok ko si Asec Nestor Santiago.
So malaking tulong sa orchestration ng expansion.
In short, nobody was relieved of their duties. Instead, a complementary official was added to assist with the workload of the duties of the Head of RITM.
Following this, during an interview on DZMM, Duque stated that the increase of test kits would reflect an increased number of both positive and negative cases.
He added that this would be a good thing since the country can now have a clearer indication of the number of infected.
Bumaba na ‘yung ating case fatality rate, bababa pa ito. Mas mapapalawag natin ang test natin, karamihan malamang mild cases pa, ganun din ang experience sa China, 80 percent mild cases.
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