Palace hits Robredo for claiming gov’t is doing ‘propaganda’ in Covid response

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / JOAN BONDOC

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang on Monday hit Vice President Leni Robredo after she called on the Duterte administration to stop its propaganda and focus on fixing the Covid-19 pandemic response instead.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque defended the government’s response against the Covid-19 pandemic, citing data from the World Health Organization (WHO).

This is to contest a study by the Australian think-tank Lowy Institute showing that the Philippines ranked 79th place out of 98 countries for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, putting it well behind its Asian neighbors.

Roque said the Philippines ranked 32nd among countries worldwide in terms of total Covid-19 case count, 45th in terms of the number of active cases, 134th in terms of Covid-19 cases per one million population, and 72nd in terms of case fatality rate.

“Hindi po propaganda ang WHO. Baka magalit ang WHO dahil sinasabi niyo na nagpapakahalatang propaganda. Hindi po. WHO ang nagsabi kung nasaan na tayo sa ating Covid respose,” he said in a Palace briefing.

“Ito ang katotohanan. Bakit namin paniniwalaan ang ibang pag-aaral, samantalang lahat tayo nagtitiwala sa WHO sa panahon ng pandemya. Hindi propaganda ‘yan, katotohanan. Buksan ang mata, buksan ang tenga,” Roque added.

He added that it is “unfair” to call the work of the country’s healthcare workers and frontliners as propaganda.

“It is unfair to refer to their [health care workers] work output as propaganda. ‘Wag naman po,” the Palace official said.

In her radio show on Sunday, Robredo urged the Duterte administration to take action and find solutions instead of being defensive about its pandemic response.

She also urged the government to stop the propaganda and instead learn from better-performing countries on their efforts against Covid-19.

“Sana instead na magdepensa tayo, tanggapin natin. Tanggapin para maaksyunan nang maayos. Nakita ko iyong mga response, parang defensive pa din tayo. Parang jina-justify pa din natin kung bakit mababa iyong response,” Robredo said.

(Instead of being defensive, let’s accept it. Let’s accept it. I saw the responses, we seem to be defensive, like we’re justifying why our response is ranked low.)

“Huwag na tayo sa propaganda. Iyong response dapat, tinutugunan kung paano mare-resolve nang mas maaga. Kasi mas matagal iyong ganito, mas marami tayong mga kababayan na maghihirap,” she added.

(Let’s not go for propaganda. Focus on the response, address how to resolve [this pandemic] as early as possible. Because this will take some time, we have a lot of fellow countrymen who will suffer.)

JPV