Yap accepts RITM apology: It’s not an excuse but it’s normal to make mistakes

MANILA, Philippines — The “oversight” that the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) committed was a mere clerical error that should not be taken against them.

ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. Eric Go Yap said this Friday night after the RITM clarified that the lawmaker actually tested negative for the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19.

RITM initially reported that Yap tested positive for the disease, causing several other lawmakers to subject themselves to self-quarantine for having interacted with Yap recently.

READ: RITM says Rep. Yap negative for COVID-19, admits ‘clerical oversight’

“Inaamin ko, the past 48 hours have been very hard for me and to everyone around me. Hindi naging madali ito pero buong puso kong tinatanggap ang apology ng DOH-RITM,” Yap said in a statement.

(I admit, the past 48 hours have been very hard for me and to everyone around me. This has not been easy but I whole-heartedly accept the apology of DOH-RITM.)

Further, Yap said he recognizes that RITM is the “busiest medical facility in the country right now.”

“It’s not an excuse pero normal na nagkakaroon ng pagkakamali sa dami at sa pressure na tinatanggap ng RITM ngayon,” the lawmaker said.

(It’s not an excuse but it is normal to make mistakes because of the pressure being handled by RITM right now.)

The lawmaker said he “will not harbor hard feelings to anybody” as he urged the public to remain in their homes and observe caution amid the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is just a clerical error and should not be taken against RITM, hindi sila nagkamali ng pag-process ng samples ko, hindi sila nagkamali sa basa ng results ko (they did not make a mistake in processing my mistakes, they did not make a mistake in reading the results of my tests),” Yap said.

“I thank God for this news but let us not keep our guards down. Sama-sama pa din natin sugpuin ang COVID! (Let’s fight COVID-19 together!),” he added.

In its explanation, RITM said the erroneous report that Yap has COVID-19 was due to a “clerical oversight” involving an encoding error that was only discovered late Thursday night.

Yap announced that he was COVID-19 positive on Wednesday night.

KGA

READ: ACT-CIS Rep. Eric Go Yap tests positive for COVID-19

“His results are by no means a false positive. This isolated incident was brought about by an encoding error that was discovered late last night by the Molecular Biology Laboratory (MBL) of the Department of Health-Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (DOH-RITM),” RITM said.

“We maintain that our testing process is compliant with the World Health Organization (WHO) protocol, and that our results remain accurate despite this incident. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing procedure still stands as the gold standard in detecting the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19,” the institute added.