Roque says COVID-19 testing has always been gov’t priority

December 10, 2020

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Thursday said COVID-19 testing has been the priority of the Duterte administration since the start of the pandemic.

“Regardless when the President (Rodrigo Duterte) actually realized the importance of testing… It has always been our priority in the IATF and by the vaccine czar,” Roque said.

Roque said the question is “moot and academic” since the Philippine is one of the countries with the highest number of COVID-19 tests.

In a statement last Wednesday, vaccine czar and National Action Plan chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr said testing has always been a priority of the government’s response against COVID-19 with 187 accredited COVID-19 testing facilities in the country.

“Testing has been at the core of our National Action Plan (NAP) Against COVID-19 with the government’s Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Treat-Reintegrate (PDITR) strategy,” Galvez said.

"From only one licensed COVID-19 testing facility in February, we now have 187 across the country and counting. We have also put a price cap on RT-PCR tests. Testing allowed us to save lives," he added.

As of December 7, more than six million RT-PCR tests have been conducted, with daily tests averaging 35,000.

Recent data also shows almost 5.7 million individuals have been tested. Latest numbers from Our World in Data shows the Philippines surpassing the cumulative number of tests conducted by Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Galvez said testing, alongside contact tracing, isolation, and treatment measures, allowed the government to control COVID-19 cases.

"Testing allowed us to effectively conduct active case finding and surveillance. With the aggressive testing, we were able to isolate and treat positive patients, and bring down the level of transmission.  Metro Manila for example is now down to five percent of active cases, due to our continuous mitigation efforts," Galvez said. Ella Dionisio/DMS