INQToday: VP Duterte on dare for her to undergo hair follicle drug test: Let’s do it

Here’s a quick roundup of today’s top stories:

VP Duterte on dare for her to undergo hair follicle drug test: Let’s do it

Vice President Sara Duterte is willing to be the first to take a hair follicle drug test in response to some requests for such a procedure.

Duterte’s pronouncement stemmed from a challenge made by former Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque.

DOH: Monitoring systems on alert vs mpox spread

The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday said the country’s surveillance systems had been placed on alert as the World Health Organization declared mpox (formerly monkeypox) a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak in Africa that could spread outside the continent.

No border control measures are being recommended but the Bureau of Quarantine would conduct “interviews, particularly to passengers departing and arriving from countries in Africa,” according to DOH spokesperson Assistant Secretary Albert Domingo.

P64 food budget per day ‘insufficient’, PSA says

The country’s statistics agency admitted that the food poverty threshold of P63.87 per person a day is ‘insufficient’, stating that it will review the methodology for calculating poverty and food thresholds next year.

“It’s really insufficient but [the way] we set up the food threshold and the poverty threshold is the minimum basic needs, so it’s the least cost,” National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa said during a briefing.