FOR HIS “failure of leadership, negligence, lack of foresight, and inefficiency in the performance of his mandate as the secretary of the Department of Health (DOH) resulting in poor planning delayed response, lack of transparency, and misguided and flip-flopping policies and measures in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic that endangered and continues to endanger the lives of our healthcare professionals, other frontliners, and the Filipino people.”
Veritably indicting him well-nigh short for mass murder, 14 senators called for the “immediate resignation” of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III in Senate Resolution No. 362.
“Knowing fully well the danger posed by the Covid-19 pandemic in the beginning of the year, Secretary Duque failed to put in place the necessary precautionary measures to lessen, if not at all prevent, the impact of this health crisis,” said the resolution.
Furthering: “Rather than providing enlightening viewpoint on the problems and challenges confronting the country in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the present Secretary’s actions… show lack of competence, efficiency, and foresight bordering on negligence in handling the health crisis.“
Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson even went forthrightly brutal: “We are simply for a competent Secretary of Health. Take note: not more competent, but simply a competent one at the helm.”
The resolution was filed at 11:49, Thursday. Absent most conspicuously among the signatories was Senator Christopher Lawrence Go. And thereby hangs a tail, er, tale.
Quick, super fast, was the response of Malacanang to the Senate resolution. Right in the afternoon of the same day.
“Yes. The President has made a decision for Health Secretary Duque to stay put.” So Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea confirmed President Duterte’s affirmation of unqualified support to his embattled alterego. Ay, how Go’s name in the resolution could have made all the difference.
This, even as the “[President] also expressed his appreciation for the Senators’ gesture in giving him the opportunity to weigh his options on the performance [of] his SOH.” Some consuelo de bobo most appropriate to the senators there.
So, Malacanang has spoken. No, the Senate cannot even whimper, it can only heel. By instinct. Doggone it.
