House to create ‘Defeat COVID-19 committee’ amid coronavirus outbreak

House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano AFP PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives will be creating a “Defeat COVID-19 Committee” which will serve as an advisory and coordinating committee to the national inter-agency task force, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano announced Monday.

The Defeat COVID-19 Committee shall include the House’s committee on health, economic affairs, tourism, trade and industry, labor acne employment, public information, banks, and financial intermediaries, appropriations, ways and means, local government, and the Metro Manila development.

The committee will also include representatives of the “most vulnerable” to the disease as well as House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez, Minority Leader Bienvenido Abante, and Cayetano, among others.

Cayetano will supervise the COVID-19 committee.

“Kung pwedeng most of our meetings are teleconference or sending documents to each other—kasi for example sa banks, if they have to meet the Bangko Sentral and some banking associations, hindi kailangan na sampung congressman nandun,” Cayetano said.

(If we can have most of our meetings through teleconference or sending documents to each other—for example, in banks, if they have to meet the Bangko Sentral and some banking associations, you don’t need ten congressmen to be there.)

“Ilimit na lang natin pero ibibigay nung committee both ang recommendations at ‘yung questions,” he added.

(We will limit it but the committees still have to provide both the recommendations and the questions.)

Cayetano assured that the lower chamber will “continue to function but we will adapt to the call of this time to be more prudent.”

As of Sunday evening, DOH has reported 140 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country, with the death toll at 12.

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus that first emerged in China’s city of Wuhan in Hubei province in late 2019.

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses named the novel coronavirus as SARS-CoV-2.

The virus causes mild symptoms such as fever and cough for most people but can cause serious illness such as pneumonia for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems.

Coronavirus is a family of viruses, which surfaces have a crown-like appearance. The viruses are named for the spikes on their surfaces.