Palace to RITM: Be certain before releasing COVID-19 test results

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang has called on the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to exercise prudence in releasing COVID-19 test results.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo made the appeal Friday after the health research facility clarified that House appropriations committee chair Rep. Eric Yap does not have the respiratory disease, days after it initially reported that the lawmaker contracted COVID-19.

“We appeal to the RITM to be more certain of the test results before releasing them to the patients or to their doctors to avoid such unfortunate incident,” Panelo said.

Nonetheless, the Palace official welcomed the “good news.”

“We are pleased to hear about the COVID-19 negative test of Cong. Eric Yap,” Panelo said. “While the erroneous reporting of Cong. Yap’s COVID-19 positive has caused alarm and anxiety to those who had close physical contact  with him and made them undergo self-quarantine nevertheless such good news is welcome.”

The RITM said the error was brought about by an encoding error that was discovered Thursday night by its Molecular Biology Laboratory.

Yap announced last Wednesday that he tested positive for coronavirus and advised people who were in direct contact with him — including Malacañang and House of Representative officials — to do self-quarantine.

The Presidential Security Group even said it is eyeing charges against the lawmaker for allegedly misdeclaring his health status when he attended a recent Malacañang meeting.

To date, there are 803 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country, 54 of whom have died while 31 were able to recover.