Acceptance of Rio’s resignation had nothing to do with StaySafe.ph app -Palace

President Rodrigo Duterte’s acceptance of the resignation of former Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Eliseo Rio, Jr. had nothing to do with the latter’s concerns over the selection of StaySafe.ph as the Philippines' sole contact tracing application, Malacañang said Thursday.

Rio over the weekend said he was "eased out" of his position after raising issues about the application developed by Multisys Technologies Corporation.

“Iyan po ay purely speculative dahil wala naman pong nagpa-resign kay dating Usec. Rio pero siya ay nag-resign, hindi naman po niya binawi ‘yung resignation niya,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a televised briefing.

“It was really up to the President to accept or reject the application. It was accepted after four months. Wala na pong ibang storya doon.”

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Rio said the application would only work in 3G capable phones and would not cover 2G devices.

Rio also said that application at its current state does not have the capacity to conduct digital contact tracing to determine the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

On Wednesday, the former government official said the recent increase in the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country would not have happened if the government had implemented a central platform for all data available.

He alleged that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases ignored recommendations concerning data utilization. --KBK, GMA News