You can t fight a pandemic without reliable power bworldonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bworldonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
JCOMP/FREEPIK
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic has severely affected the global economy and overwhelmed health systems in many countries. In the Philippines, it exposed several gaps on both public health infrastructures and national health policies. It has also highlighted the country’s fragmented governance and the lack of healthcare facilities and human resources for health that led to the slow-phased responses to the pandemic.
Last year, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III mentioned that “battling the COVID-19 pandemic has demanded much from our health system and not only revealed its faults but emphasized an urgent need to transform and heal the system as a whole. The Universal Health Care (UHC) Law was crafted to address this very gap that has plagued our system for many years. Hence, it is a critical moment to seize, to fast track the transition to universal healthcare.”
Ironies and opportunities in digital PHL bworldonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bworldonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dr. Renato de Castro
On Jan. 29, 2021, the Philippines filed a strongly worded diplomatic protest against China’s passage of a law authorizing the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) to use force against foreign vessels in the contested waters of the South China Sea. The filing of this diplomatic protest was a reversal of Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr.’s earlier statement that the passage of the National People’s Congress of China’s CCG’s law was none of the Philippines’ business. Secretary Locsin explained that: “While enacting law is a sovereign prerogative, this one given the area involved or for that matter the open South China Sea is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law; which, if unchallenged, is submission to it.”