President Rodrigo Roa Duterte plans to once more face the public and unveil several new tactics in order to stop the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus in the Philippines.
This is what Senator Bong Go, close confidante of the President, disclosed today. Go did not give other details except to say that it will be about government efforts at stopping the virus right on its tracks.
Last Thursday, Duterte went late night appearance, declaring his decision to place the entire Metro Manila under community quarantine. The president was widely criticized for the vagueness of his message, which he tried to parlay fears of a lockdown by using the term ” community quarantine” but ended up saying that what the government really intends to do is a lockdown.
That classic Duterte statement once more caught the attention of the public and became a subject of intense negative criticism for several days.
Worse, it compounded the situation on the ground by sparking a massive exodus of thousands of Filipinos from Metro Manila. Thousands went home or resided outside the metropolis shortly after the Duterte debacle.
The stock market also crashed, with about a trillion pesos gone in a single day in the local bourse due to panic selling of stocks. It was only when the Finance department intervened by asking state pension fund managers to buy worthless stocks made stale by the president’s confusing statement.
