Hontiveros: Philippines’ low resilience ranking due to poor COVID-19 response

Senator Risa Hontiveros on Thursday said the Philippines’ poor performance in the latest COVID Resilience Ranking was not due to inequitable distribution of vaccines across the globe as claimed by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.

Hontiveros said the country's ranking was due to the poor pandemic response of the government.

“I think ang dapat talagang ma-piss off ay hindi 'yung Health secretary, pero 'yung ating mga mamamayan (I think, it is not the Health secretary who should be pissed off, but our countrymen), not with the Bloomberg report because it’s just the latest reflection of the truth on the ground,” she said in an ANC interview.

“Ang talagang nakaka-buwisit, nakakadismaya sa mga mamamayan (What is really annoying for the public) is the very poor health response and within that, the poor economic response,” she pointed out.

Hontiveros emphasized that it is “more unfair” that the health and economic response of the government “has been so poor in protecting our people of the worst effects of COVID-19 and of the recession.”

She also explained that the vaccination program is just the fifth part of the country’s COVID-19 pandemic response.

The Department of Health (DOH) was not able to come up with a system that will speed up the first four COVID-19 responses which are testing, tracing, isolation, and treatment, Hontiveros claimed.

“‘Di naman Bloomberg ang nag-drop ng ball (It was not Bloomberg that dropped the ball), I’m sorry, it was the Health department under the leadership of the good secretary that has been dropping the ball so far,” she said.

“Sisisihin pa ba natin 'yung Bloomberg (Are we going to blame Bloomberg)? They’re just doing their duty as a very, this passionate hard-nosed economic publication and monitor. Rather than getting mad, we should step up,” she said.

The latest Bloomberg report showed that the Philippines has slipped into the second-to-the-last position in a global ranking that measures the success of the 53 biggest economies at containing the COVID-19 pandemic with least amount of disruption to the society and the economy.

The country ranked 52nd in June with a score of 45.3, only ahead of Argentina with 37.

Among the ten worst countries in the latest ranking are Malaysia with a resilience of 46.6, India with 47.7, Indonesia with 48.2, Colombia with 48.6, Pakistan with 50.7, Bangladesh with 51.3, Peru with 51.4, and Taiwan with 52.1.

“India, the Philippines, and some Latin America countries rank lowest amid a perfect storm of variant-driven outbreaks, slow vaccination, and global isolation,” Bloomberg said in its writeup.—AOL, GMA News