‘Reboot corona plans’

Economist-lawmakers in the House of Representatives have urged the administration to use the two-week lockdown to reassess and reboot the country’s response to COVID-19 pandemic.

Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo said the government should use the “timeout” to assess how to collect, analyze and report data and to plan for a “more localized response” to the pandemic.

“Let’s use this lockdown period productively. Let us reboot our COVID plans,” she said in a statement on Monday.

Although the economy will lose P12 billion each day of lockdown, Quimbo said she supports the administration’s move to revert Metro Manila, Bulacan, Laguna and Rizal to modified enhanced community quarantine.

Let’s use this lockdown period productively. Let us reboot our COVID plans.

Quimbo has also urged the Department of Health (DoH) to earn the public’s confidence, saying the public will not heed the health protocols without trust to the agency.

House tax panel Chairman Joey Salceda, for his part, urged the DoH to shape up.

“I ask the DoH to shape up. They must disprove the impression that they are merely reactive to developments by demonstrating to the public that they are in control of the situation,” he said.

“This will entail an honest reckoning with current shortcomings, and immediate efforts to improve in those areas. Nothing less will do,” Salceda added.

He also asked the country’s top economic managers to grant health executives all the resources they need.

“A stronger grip on public health outcomes drives market confidence, and confidence is everything in economics,” Salceda said.