MANILA, Philippines — A party-list lawmaker is pushing for the creation of an Epidemic Management Commission (EMC) as the country continues to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Alfredo Garbin Jr. said the EMC shall serve as “the institutional memory of our collective experience on the coronavirus” and shall ensure that the country has better defenses and countermeasures against the effects of COVID-19 and other future epidemics.
“As early as now, we need an exit strategy. The IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease) is an ad hoc body, busy with day-to-day matters. For the years ahead, we need this commission as a permanent structure,” Garbin said in a statement.
The commission, Garbin said, can be created through an Executive Order while Congress can institutionalize the commission later through the passage of a bill.
“The EMC should have its own epidemiology and quarantine unit, a governing body like the IATF, and coordination authority over the network of molecular and microbiology laboratories we have nationwide,” Garbin said.
“No need to transfer the DOH’s (Department of Health) Epidemiology Bureau and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine because the DOH needs those,” he added.
Garbin explained that the commission could be attached to the Office of the President. But once the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR) is approved and operational, the commission will be transferred there.
The lawmaker is likewise proposing the deployment of hospital ships for future epidemics. These will be manned by a corps of highly-trained health professionals.
“These ships can be built at the shipyard in Bataan. With these hospital ships, we can respond to outbreaks and epidemics in the most remote areas of our country,” Garbin said.
“The molecular laboratories now in operation and those being built would be for the host of other contagious diseases the DOH is mandated to address,” he added.
As of April 23, there are 6,981 COVID-19 cases in the country, with the death toll at 462.