Palace: Increasing COVID-19 cases not due to govt's failure

The increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the country one year since the COVID-19 lockdown was implemented is partly due to new variants of the virus, not the government's failure in COVID-19 response, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said Monday.

Roque made the statement when sought to comment on Twitter hashtag "DutertePalpak" amid over 4,000 new COVID-19 cases being recorded per day in the country for the past week.

“Tignan po natin ang datos. Napababa naman talaga natin ang kaso hanggang nitong buwan ng Marso na sumipa muli (Let's look at the data. We were able to bring down the cases up until this March when the surge happened),” he said during a Palace briefing.

“Iyong nakumpirma na mga variant na mas nakakahawa ay isa sa mga dahilan ng surge, hindi po dahil palpak ang gobyerno (The COVID-19 variants were the reason for the surge, not the supposed lapses of the government). We are doing a very good, excellent job until recently,” he added.

Among the variants of coronavirus currently present in COVID-19 cases in the country are those first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil.

“I do not think anyone should be blamed, it is the nature of the virus to mutate,” Roque pointed out.

“If you look at our case fatality rate, our number is still low compared with the rest of the world, although we are also extending our condolences to those who lost their loved ones to the virus,” he added.

The presidential spokesperson announced Monday that he tested positive for COVID-19.

Likewise, Roque maintained that the increasing number COVID-19 cases is not due easing quarantine restrictions.

“I don’t like to think this is because of reopening the economy. We eased restrictions in October 12, and cases were going down. Christmas day passed and cases were still going down,” Roque said.

“Let us not blame it on opening the economy because…I guess, coming from someone now with COVID, it was not the opening of the economy that caused the increase. I am very strict in observing health protocols but I was still infected.  Kahit anong ingat, puwede pa rin mahawa. Kaya kailangan mas maging maingat (No matter how careful we are, we can still get infected. So we really need to be more careful),” Roque added.

Director Alethea de Guzman of the DOH-Epidemiology Bureau also said on Monday that 7% of samples sequenced by the Philippine Genome Center accounted for new variants of coronavirus.

The country started its COVID-19 vaccination last March 1, the last nation in Southeast Asia to do so.

The Philippines has only secured 1.12 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, donated by the Chinese government and global initiative COVAX facility.

The Philippines has 53,479 active COVID-19 cases, as of March 15.—AOL, GMA News