Drilon traces Philippines' COVID-19 problem to failure to close borders early

As far as Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon is concerned, the government's failure to immediately close Philippine borders last year to "please China" resulted in the high number of COVID-19 cases in the country.

Drilon made the remark on Tuesday in reaction to President Rodrigo Duterte downplaying criticisms against the government over its alleged failure to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his televised address on Monday night, Duterte said that other countries are placed on lockdown as well. He added that even other countries that started early vaccination experienced reinfection because of new coronavirus variants that are more contagious.

But Drilon pointed out that despite all this, countries like Vietnam, Laos, and Taiwan were able to control the spread of COVID-19 in their jurisdictions because "they were able to do the correct testing."

He even said that Taiwan and Vietnam, as early as they heard about the outbreak of the disease in Wuhan, China, early last year, immediately closed its borders.

"But we did not do so because as [Health] Secretary [Francisco] Duque said, it might displease China," Drilon said in an ANC interview.

"Pleasing China, I'm sorry, resulted in over 12,000, 13,000 deaths. Pleasing China resulted in over 700,000 COVID cases in our jurisdiction," he added.

The Philippines on Monday reported a record 10,016 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total tally to 731,894. This the highest recorded daily case count since the pandemic began.

The surge in COVID-19 cases prompted the national government to reimpose an enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila and four adjacent provinces: Cavite, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna.

Critics, meanwhile, pounced on the national government over its alleged poor response on the COVID-19 pandemic, spawning the Twitter hashtag #DutertePalpak.

Even former Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said the Philippines' situation worsened, saying the country is 10 steps back from square one in arresting the COVID-19 contagion. —KBK, GMA News