Nephew of Duterte’s top Mindanao aide infected with coronavirus

Shane Piñol, nephew of Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Secretary Emmanuel Piñol at the Davao International Airport, while waiting for residents who wanted to come home to Cotabato province. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

COTABATO CITY—The 20-year-old nephew of Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Secretary Emmanuel Piñol tested positive for coronavirus.

Shane Matthew Pinol, who had been on the frontline of Cotabato province’s fight against COVID-19, is now on quarantine but was showing no symptoms.

“A young member of the Piñol family has tested positive for COVID-19 but he remained asymptomatic and strong,” Secretary Piñol said in a statement.

Shane has been involved in the provincial government’s Sagip Cotabateno program aimed at bringing home stranded natives of the province.

Shane is second child of the secretary’s brother, former Board Member Socrates Pinol.

According to Secretary Pinol, Shane has been helping bring home to Cotabato thousands of stranded individuals.

The MinDA chief said he believed it was during one of these rescue missions that the young Shane contracted the virus.

Shane’s father said the young man submitted himself for isolation right after the tests that showed he was positive for SARS Cov2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Secretary Piñol said the young man had been living alone in a house near the provincial capitol since he started working for the provincial government.

He was not in contact with other members of the family, not even during Father’s Day gathering on Sunday (June 22), he added.

He said the tracing of all people that his nephew had come in contact with had started and that Shane himself had furnished the names of all people he had mingled with during the rescue missions that he was involved in.

TSB