MANILA, Philippines?Swine Flu has paralyzed the House of pork.

The House of Representatives whose members receive pork barrel has suspended office work for five days after reports that the country?s first swine flu-related fatality was its employee.
A 49-year-old woman was a staff member of the House committee on people?s participation, which holds office on the third floor of the Ramon Mitra building along with dozens of other committees.

She attended a seminar from June 15 to 16 at the Batasan complex in Quezon City where the House is located, and reported for work on June 17 until she fell gravely ill on June 18, according to a House official. She died on June 19.

Speaker Prospero Nograles ordered the suspension of office work from noon yesterday until June 28 to allow the Department of Health (DOH) to sanitize all buildings in the complex and conduct contact tracing of the victim?s families and friends.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, however, said there was no need for the House to suspend work until Sunday.

?That?s not recommended, because you?re now assuming that the person had contact with a majority of the people working there. I hope the lower house of Congress will look into these guidelines (for workplaces) and follow them. Otherwise they might be (wasting) unnecessary efforts,? he said.

Duque said testing all the 3,000 employees of the chamber for the Influenza A(H1N1) virus was unnecessary. ?Why do you want to do that? I?ll talk to the leaders of the House,? Duque told reporters at a briefing.

The DOH has advised employees who have flu-like symptoms not to report for work to avoid spreading the virus.

Identified

At an impromptu general assembly at the North Wing lobby yesterday morning, Ramon Ricardo Roque, House deputy secretary general for administration, called on the employees to ?pray for (our colleague).?

Roque identified the woman but asked that her name not be published.

The employee died of a heart attack at her home in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. A throat swab after her death indicated she was infected with the virus.

Respect privacy

The announcement from the House that the deceased was one of its employees also did not sit well with Duque who had asked the media to respect the family?s privacy.

Duque is a longtime friend of the deceased?s brother.

Health authorities would not have known about the case had the woman?s brother not called up Duque asking for a postmortem swab test for the swine flu virus.

Laid to rest

Duque said he was not consulted before Roque announced that the woman was a House employee.

He said the deceased was laid to rest yesterday afternoon after the family had held a wake since the evening of June 19.

Duque said it was perfectly all right to hold a wake since a person?s remains no longer harbored any disease-causing organisms and viruses.

Another House employee

Roque?s announcement that a male employee of the Congressional Planning and Budget Department (CPBD) also tested positive for the virus, heightened anxiety among employees who rushed to booths for free vaccines.

Roque said the man was recovering from the virus. The Inquirer learned that he was a top executive of the CPBD and had come from a meeting in Malacañang before he fell ill.

Rumors that the country?s first swine flu death came from among their ranks had started to circulate as early as Monday afternoon among the House?s more than 3,000 employees.

Panic

The rumors continued to swirl yesterday morning. Text messages from some House officials advising their staff to vacate the Ramon V. Mitra building caused panic among the employees between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m.

?A lot of them started packing their things to go home early, while others lined up for vaccine shots. Some of them were shocked by the news,? said the building?s security chief, Raul Ruel Sescon.

?Approachable?

Sescon said the fatality was ?approachable? and had a lot of friends in the building who were all distressed by the news.

He said there was talk that two or three other employees were infected by the virus and were working at the CPBD office in the main building.

?We don?t know if there is a third victim,? said Roque who noted that none of the A(H1N1) victims in the House went abroad. (The woman visited Kalinga province on June 11 to 14).

DOH scored

Muntinlupa Rep. Rufino Biazon was peeved at the DOH for not warning the House that the swine flu fatality was on its staff.

?We were not informed which caused confusion and panic in Congress,? Biazon said. ?He (Duque) should have given us more information so that we and our staff could have been taken precaution much earlier.?

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez said it was ironic that health officials did not tell lawmakers about the fatality at Monday?s hearing of the committee on health in the same building where the woman had worked.

?The DOH should explain why they did not disclose right there and then despite my repeated questions on where the fatality was from. I believe we should have been told that our area was potentially a risky area,? Golez said.

Unacceptable

South Cotabato Rep. Arthur Pingoy, chair of the House committee on health, also scored the DOH.

?It?s unacceptable how the DOH handled the situation. We should have been warned much earlier so we could have taken the necessary precautions to protect ourselves and our family,? he said.

Pingoy said the DOH should have alerted the woman?s coworkers on the third floor of the Ramon Mitra building as soon as she was diagnosed with the virus.

Pingoy said the House only confirmed that the victim was from the chamber ?after our secretariat, which worked on the same floor, had dug for the facts themselves.?

Brought to RITM

He said the woman?s coworkers on the committee and other employees on the third floor were brought by the DOH to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Alabang for tests.

Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, a medical doctor, went on self-imposed self-quarantine yesterday.

The Senate has yet to come up with a contingency plan amid the flu pandemic, according to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. The sessions of Congress are set to resume on July 27.

Among the senators who are still out of the country are Jinggoy Estrada, Alan Peter Cayetano, Lito Lapid and Loren Legarda.

Also out of the country are Juan Miguel Zubiri, Jamby Madrigal, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Edgardo Angara.