News Roundup 14 July 2020
Jul 14, 2020 • 4 min Read
COVID-19 cases in Philippines hit 57,545; deaths at 1,603 | PHILSTAR.COM – The Philippines reported 634 additional coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections, pushing the national caseload to 57,545, as pressure increases on hospitals after the relaxation of containment measures. The DOH also logged 88 more people who have recovered from the severe respiratory disease. This raised the total number of COVID-19 survivors to 20,459. But six more patients have died from COVID-19, bringing the country’s death toll to 1,603. Four of these deaths occurred in July, while two happened in June.
Public told to report neighbors with COVID-19 as cops prepare to go house-to-house | PHILSTAR.COM – Police are set to conduct house-to-house operations to find COVID-19 patients under home quarantine and transfer them to isolation facilities, Interior and Local Secretary Eduardo Año said Tuesday. This comes as police enforcement of health protocols against the coronavirus takes a page straight out of the PNP’s 2018 ‘anti-tambay’ campaign, with police looking at intensified “discipline-based ordinances” and bans on loitering, drinking, and smoking as “tools” to clamp down on quarantine violators as the agency’s focus shifts to the barangay level. “What we’re going to do now is that with the help of our local governments and the Philippine National Police, we’ll be going house by house and we’ll be bringing positive [cases] to our COVID-19 facilities,” Año said in Filipino at an online press briefing. “To our countrymen, if you know a neighbor who is COVID-19 positive and hiding, please report them to us. This is a law, RA 11332,” Año added. The Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act requires “reporting of a condition to local or state health authorities, as required for notifiable diseases, epidemics or public health events of public health concern”. The law has also been used as justification to arrest people for holding protests or for going on outreach programs during the quarantine.
‘Parang tokhang’: Senator hits house-to-house search for COVID-19 patients | INQUIRER.NET – Senator Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday criticized the government’s decision to send police officers and local government personnel to households to search for COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms. Hontiveros likened this initiative to “Oplan Tokhang,” the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) controversial campaign against illegal drugs, wherein policemen would visit the homes of suspected drug users and drug dealers to ask them to surrender, and which has since been associated with the deaths of suspects who police claim have resisted arrest and engaged them in a gunfight. “Parang tokhang pero pang-COVID (This resembles tokhang but for COVID-19 patients)… This may actually discourage more people from reporting their status,” Hontiveros wrote on Twitter. “We need to improve home- and community-based healthcare. Imbes na pulis, mas kinakailangan ang mga doktor at health workers sa barangay at mga kabahayan. We need more, better barangay-based healthcare, not this,” she added. (We need to improve home- & community-based healthcare. Instead of policemen, we need more doctors and health workers in barangays and households. We need more, better barangay-based healthcare, not this.)
Concepcion: Mass testing a must to save jobs, accelerate economic recovery | Manila Bulletin – Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion on Tuesday stressed the importance of mass testing as a way to keep the health situation under control and accelerate economic recovery. “Test, test, test, and isolate are the only way to save the jobs and livelihoods of our Filipino people. To date, Project ARK has tested 107,782 individuals, with private companies carrying out 66,617 tests and LGU (local government unit) partners finishing 41,665 tests. We have to test millions of people. That’s the only way to create visibility. The revelation here is, early on there was a debate to test only symptomatic and not asymptomatic using rapid test kits since RT-PCR capacity was not enough. The results from the private sector showed that if we did not test the asymptomatic, then this could have escalated to a worse situation,” Concepcion said during the Balik-Kabuhayan webinar held on Tuesday with health experts, government officials and businessmen.
Court eyes dismissal of ABS-CBN petition | The Manila Times – The Supreme Court is considering junking the petition filed by ABS-CBN Corp. after the House of Representatives refused to grant the network a new franchise. According to unimpeachable sources of The Manila Times in the high court, the magistrates were inclined to dismiss the petition filed by the network, asking the tribunal to stop the implementation of the closure order issued by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). The sources said the justices would wait for the recommendations of the ponente to the case — Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe — following the decision of the House Committee on Legislative Franchises denying the grant of a franchise to the giant network. “There will be adjustments to be done by the justices in view of the recent ruling of Congress denying the franchise of ABS-CBN,” a source told the Times.
