News Roundup 14 July 2021
Jul 14, 2021 • 4 min Read
Philippines sees 3,806 new coronavirus infections | PHILSTAR.COM – Local health authorities on Wednesday reported 3,806 more COVID-19 infections, bringing the national caseload to 1,485,457.
- Active cases: 44,408 or 3% of the total
- Recoveries: 6,296, pushing total to 1,414,817
- Deaths: 140, bringing total to 26,232
OVP confident Robredo survey numbers will rise if she decides on presidential run | PHILSTAR.COM – The Office of the Vice President was unbothered by recent survey results that showed President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, taking the lead in pre-election surveys. “VP Leni’s numbers are respectable considering that she has been focused on working on COVID-19 response initiatives and has paid no attention to the frantic positioning for 2022 at all,” Vice President Leni Robredo’s spokesperson, Barry Gutierez, said in a statement. This came after findings of a survey by Pulse Asia held in June suggested that some six percent of voters would have voted for Vice President Leni Robredo for president if elections were held when the survey was conducted. The same survey found that 28% of respondents would have voted for Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte for president, while 18% would have voted for her father President Rodrigo Duterte for vice president if elections were held then “Yung iba diyan, deny ng deny na tatakbo, pero nagkalat naman ang mukha at pangalan sa mga billboard at tarp. Si VP Leni, trabaho lang ang tutok,” Gutierrez also said. (Other people keep denying that they’ll run, but their names and faces are showing up on billboards and tarps. Vice President Leni is focused on her work.) Similar to her father’s tangent in 2016, the Davao City mayor said last week that she is “open” to joining the presidential race in 2022 after months of saying she would not run. Tarpaulins have also been put up in different parts of the country urging her to run.
PDP-Laban may ‘cease to exist’ if party backs ‘outsider,’ warns Pimentel | INQUIRER.NET – The ruling PDP-Laban may “cease to exist” should an “outsider” be endorsed by the party as its presidential bet in the 2022 polls, Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel warned. “Ang nakikita ko, by supporting an outsider, ililiko nila yung partido, the outsider wins. Talunan na lahat dito sa party [ng outsider]—kasi may vehicle na itong outsider, may [sariling] party,” Pimentel, executive vice chairman of PDP-Laban, said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum Wednesday. “Ano ang gagawin sa PDP-Laban? Ifo-fold nila. Lalamunin ito and we will cease to exist. That’s my mission lang, to make sure that itong partidong ito na dugo na po ang na-invest namin diyan…matuloy ang existence,” he added. Pimentel and the faction led by expelled PDP-Laban vice chairman Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi have been at odds with each other. The senator said Cusi’s faction is pushing for an “outsider” to be the party’s standard-bearer. While Pimentel did not mention a name, presidential daughter Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio is reportedly being groomed to succeed her father.
Amid COVID-19 threats, Robredo dismayed at politicians focusing on 2022 polls | Manila Bulletin – Vice President Leni Robredo has expressed dismay over some known politicians who as early as now are focusing on the 2022 elections instead of the efforts in addressing the pandemic. Robredo, an opposition leader, lamented the misplaced priorities of possible candidates posturing for next year’s polls. “Makikita mo iyon ngayon, iyong mga malalaking politiko, may eleksyon, walang eleksyon, eleksyon iyong nasa isip (You can see it now, the big-time politicians, there is an election or not, they still think of the elections),” she said recently over dzXL. Without naming names, Robredo said it would be better for them to focus more attention on the health crisis instead of the upcoming national elections. The vice president noted the surge of COVID-19 cases in other parts of the country that need urgent attention. “Iyong eleksyon next year pa iyon. Mabuti kung walang problema ngayon puwede niyong pag-usapan iyong eleksyon pero ang dami nating problema (The elections are next year. It’s okay if there’s no problem now, we can talk about the elections but we have so many problems),” Robredo said. According to the OCTA Research latest report, the National Capital Region (NCR) still topped the list of local government units with daily new COVID-19 cases from July 4 to 10. It recorded 660 cases. Outside Metro Manila, Davao City, led by presidential daughter and Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio came second with 234 new cases per day during the period, followed by Iloilo City (111), Bacolod (99), and Cebu City (76). Even with the surge of cases in her city, Duterte-Carpio admitted to thinking about the possibility of running for president, although not with her father, President Duterte, as a running mate. Duterte-Carpio’s billboards and tarpaulins can be found in major thoroughfares around the country. Robredo, on the other hand, said she is yet to decide whether to run for the country’s top post. She stressed that her focus right now is on her office’s COVID-19 initiatives.
