Duque faces Senate scrutiny after rejecting call to quit

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III will face a Senate inquiry after he rejected calls to step down by majority of the senators over his supposed lapses in handling the coronavirus crisis, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said on Friday.

“As I earlier said, our job does not end with the filing of the resolution,” Lacson told the Inquirer, referring to Senate Resolution No. 362 signed on Thursday by 14 senators who demanded Duque’s resignation.

“As a matter of course, a public hearing will be conducted after [the] first reading and referral [of the resolution],” Lacson said in a Viber message.

Opportunity to explain

“Not only will it give Duque the opportunity to explain his side, it will also give all other resource persons … to further articulate their views with the end in view of passing relevant legislation on our part,” he added.

Lacson said it was important for the people to be “enlightened” after the Senate inquiry.

The senators, all members of the majority bloc, had sought Duque’s immediate resignation for alleged negligence, inefficiency, failure of leadership and lack of foresight as secretary of the Department of Health (DOH) in leading the country’s fight against the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Sotto ‘cannot not support’ it

Besides Lacson, those who signed the resolution were Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senators Juan Miguel Zubiri, Nancy Binay, Joel Villanueva, Imee Marcos, Sherwin Gatchalian, Ramon Revilla Jr., Sonny Angara, Grace Poe, Francis Tolentino, Manny Pacquiao, Ronald dela Rosa and Lito Lapid. Sotto clarified that they did not ask President Duterte to sack the health secretary.

“Secretary Duque is a friend. But when almost two-thirds of the Senate, perhaps more, receive complaints from health workers, DOH employees and those in the direct line of responses, I cannot not support [the resolution],” Sotto said.

‘Step up’

Lacson said the senators who supported the call for Duque to step down had “sounded the wake-up alarm for him to improve his performance for the good of the public.”

Villanueva said Duque should now “step up” in his leadership “to do justice” to the thousands of health workers who were risking their lives while treating COVID-19 patients.

Poe said it was important for the country to have a health secretary “who can lead it to the right path” as the nation geared for a protracted fight against the highly contagious disease.

“I have been talking to doctors. They say that during a surgery, they really replace doctors who are physically or mentally incapable of conducting the operation,” she said, likening that move to the call to replace Duque even in the middle of the national health emergency.

Supportive Cabinet

“What we need in the DOH is a leader who really understands [the situation], able to make the right decisions and provide inspiration,” Poe said.

Cabinet members, however, rallied around Duque, saying his honest presentation of scientific data helped the government make hard decisions in responding to the new coronavirus outbreak.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, who is also the spokesperson for the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, said he and his fellow Cabinet officials “uttered 100-percent support” for Duque, whom they liked because he “tells it as it is.”

“No ifs and buts. In this crisis, in what we’re facing now, we have to make hard decisions. You have to make decisions on the go, quick, decisive, hard decisions. It helps us that he is there,” he said.

‘Right decisions’

He added that the President valued this trait, hence his decision to keep Duque at his post.

“He (Duque) doesn’t say, ‘We should be sensitive here because someone might get angry.’ We can’t do that and I think that’s what the President appreciates. You have to tell it how it is, right now. No sugarcoating, no frivolousness,” Nograles said.

Nograles said Duque’s recommendation to impose a Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine matched the response of the Philippines’ neighbors in the region.

“All of the decisions that were made came out to be, you know, the right decisions. If we have not imposed a community quarantine or the travel restrictions immediately, the 75,000 projection of COVID-19 cases would have come true,” he said.

‘Missteps’

“There will be missteps in any battle,” Nograles said. “But you have to keep moving, you have to keep making decisions, you have to keep going. Otherwise the virus will overtake you, and we cannot be bothered by things like that (call for resignation).”

Nograles also noted that “it’s very strange” that some names were being mentioned as Duque’s replacement after the senators pressed for his resignation.

Two mentioned by Sen. Francis Pangilinan were Philippine General Hospital director Gerardo Legaspi or former Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit as possible replacements.