President Duterte: “Somebody has to communicate to the people what government is doing.”
PRESIDENT DUTERTE — The Philippine President explained to the public that he’s holding his weekly pre-recorded public address because someone from the government had to communicate with the people the status of the country’s pandemic response efforts.
The President made the statement during the “Talk to the People” public briefing aired late Monday evening, January 10.
President Duterte, in his opening remarks, acknowledged that current restrictions would limit gatherings, but said that the government must continue working amidst the rise of coronavirus cases in the country.
According to the President, the government will continue to appear a semblance in public through the medium of television. The President also recognized the dangers of their weekly meeting, but said that the risks came with the job.
“Tayo sa public eh we do not want to — hindi naman violate — we do not want to do it, one is really for our safety, public health, ‘yung health natin; and second is, well, we have to — somebody has to communicate to the people what government is doing,” the President said. “Now kung ma-compromise tayo, that’s part of the game. Iyan ang trabaho namin. Ngayon kung magka-COVID kami, then so be it. Kasali sa trabaho ‘yan eh. Now kung mamatay ako, and then so be it.”
The country was currently facing a spike in coronavirus cases possibly fueled by the Omicron variant. On January 10, the Philippines recorded 33,169 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of coronavirus infections in the country to 2,998,530.
In an attempt to control the further spread of the coronavirus disease, the government placed NCR and other nearby provinces under Alert Level 3 until January 15 and also ordered an increase in bed capacity in those areas.
The President also said that more localities will be placed under the stricter quarantine period if the situation really worsened.
READ ALSO: President Duterte Says Increasing Cases Of Omicron Variant Is Bothering Him
Also, the President said that the COVID-19 situation in the Philippines was “becoming more alarming every day”. According to the President, the arrival of the different variants or mutations of COVID-19 have made things difficult.
DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III said in the same briefing that the highly-transmissible Omicron variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 as far as the new samples that they have subjected to genomic sequencing were concerned.
“I hope that’s the same banana that is applicable to all ‘yung mga gamot natin,” the President said.
President Duterte further said that on January 7, experts noted a high COVID-19 reproduction rate in Metro Manila of more than five, adding that the positivity rate as of January 10 was about 46%.
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