Read up on Duterte’s report, Palace tells Hontiveros

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang took a swipe at opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros for criticizing President Rodrigo Duterte’s public address late Monday night, saying she should read up on his report to Congress to understand government’s measures against COVID-19.

“The Office of the President has already submitted to both Houses of Congress the President’s 18-page report, detailing the actions undertaken by the Executive Branch to suppress the further transmission and spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the country,” Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.

“The good Senator may want to study the same for her enlightenment instead of courting a media hype,” he added.

Hontiveros earlier slammed the President’s “late night show,” saying it neither presented a “sound assessment nor a concrete plan” to address the health emergency crisis.

She also called on the President to “act with a sense of urgency” now that all funds and special powers have been granted to him through Republic Act No. 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.

“Where was she all this time when PRRD decisively acted on the national grave threat we face by undertaking aggressive measures to curb the spread of COVID-19? Was she perhaps hard on hearing when she was watching the televised message of the President as commented by one of her colleagues in the Senate? How could she have missed the program articulated by the Chief Executive?” Panelo asked.

“When the President signed Republic Act No. 11469 and the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) was making a report to our people almost daily through its press briefings on how it was implementing the law, did she fail to catch any of these briefings on television and radio as well as read them in the newspapers?” he added.

Panelo also called on the senator to engage in productive discourse instead of supposedly contributing to misinformation.

“We urge her to engage in an intelligent and productive discourse and help in the battle against COVID-19 and not to contribute to the misinformation widely peddled in the social media by the purveyors of confusion and panic designed to put the President in a bad light. There must be an end to this nitpicking madness,” he said.

The President, during his late-night public address, touted the government’s program to aid low-income families affected by the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.

Duterte also mentioned the government’s plan to acquire more medical equipment and personal protective equipment for health frontliners.

Apart from these, he warned local officials against politicizing the distribution of food packages and cash assistance for their constituents, saying they would be detained until the COVID-19 pandemic ends.

Health officials on Tuesday recorded 538 news cases of COVID-19 in the country, causing the overall count to reach 2,084.

Of the number, 88 fatalities have been recorded while recoveries are at 49.

KGA