Critics of gov’t virus response invited to IATF

Responding to Palace spokesperson Harry Roque’s invitation for him and three others to join the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), former University of the Philippines chancellor Michael Tan declined the honor because of his age.

But the medical anthropologist, who recently wrote about his personal health concerns in his Inquirer column, said he would “continue to contribute to the program as an outsider, making recommendations based on scientific research.”

“I do not want to sit in the IATF. I’m a senior citizen and want younger people in IATF,” Tan told the Inquirer.

Tan criticized the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a public forum of Citizens’ Urgent Response to End COVID-19 (Cure COVID) on July 22 along with former undersecretary of the National Anti-Poverty Commission and UP associate professor Corazon Jimenez-Tan, Dr. Edelina Dela Paz of the Health Alliance for Democracy and Dr. Joshua San Pedro of the Coalition for People’s Right to Health.