MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Monday prodded Malacañang to unveil a 100-day plan for a “summer offensive” beginning next month amid the soaring number of coronavirus infections.
After a year into the pandemic, Recto said the government should make a “final push against the virus that will end the stalemate and turn the tide in our favor.”
“Like any war, the people can only be assured of victory, not with words, but with a show of weapons in use: vaccines in the arms of the people,” he said in a statement.
Malacañang, he said, should use the anniversary “to unveil a 100-day plan for a summer offensive from April to June, with clear targets in terms of the number of people vaccinated, the number of vaccines that will arrive, and where they will be sent.”
“We need a battle plan that will not only unify the nation, but will lift our spirits and assign us the role we have to play. This is the clear tunnel vision we need,” Recto said.
“When the fighting targets are clearly communicated to the people who see a leadership that inspires by example, the war will be won,” he added.
For opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros, however, the past year was full of “hypocrisy” from some of the higher officials, who would be reported to have violated safety health protocols.
“From mañanitas to skipping health protocols all while threatening to arrest the public for protocol violations, these have been 365 days of hypocrisy from some of our highest officials,” Hontiveros said in a separate statement.
She also lamented that instead of rolling out aggressive health-based approaches, the government responded through “undeserving promotions, pats-on-the-back and premature celebrations.”
“The consequence of this is that we now face 5,000 cases daily, almost 13,000 deaths, an increasing debt of USD14 Billion and only .1% of the whole population vaccinated,” Hontiveros said.
She also raised the questions that still need an answer, like the supposed unreleased benefits and allowance to health workers and the cash aid to low-income families, which were funded through the Bayanihan 2.
The senator also hit the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases for continuously using “silly and ineffective band-aid solutions as a smokescreen for the fact that the real systematic response has still not yet been made.”
“We are scrambling to control the pandemic again, but ignore the fact that there are no real systems in place for free mass testing, no unified contact tracing system and therefore no chance to mass isolate,” she said.
Hontiveros reiterated the need to go back to the basics of test, trace and isolate, noting that only 5.9% of all healthcare workers have so far been vaccinated against the virus since two weeks ago.
“Barely the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, another opposition member, also stressed the need to step up contact tracing amid the surge in Covid-19 cases in the country.
“Of course yung quarantine, fine, but we have to step up on contact tracing…” he said in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel.
“You have to continue testing. Nakita natin na habang hindi nagkakaroon ng herd immunity, kelangan pa rin ng testing. And I’m told they are testing less now than we were six months ago,” Pangilinan also said.