Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday, Sept. 22 demanded the suspension by the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) of all active transactions and contracts with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation. Because of the many lies Pharmally has allegedly given
Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros on Monday, April 19, joined calls for the government to fix its list of beneficiaries of the government’s cash assistance program to effect safe and speedy release of these funds to recipients.
Published April 16, 2021, 7:01 PM
Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday, April 16) said it is unnecessary for the government to take “drastic” steps to address the lack of quarantine facilities to treat the increasing number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients by taking over hotels to turn it into isolation quarters.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros(Senate of the Philippines / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
“At the end of his sentence, even the President realized, in his own words, that is not a remedy. And we don’t need to employ such drastic steps if from the start, we boosted our health facilities,” Hontiveros said in an interview on CNN Philippines.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros
(Senate of the Philippines / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
The senator made the statement after presidential spokesperson Harry Roque disclosed the President is handling the country’s disputes with China “in private,” asserting that diplomatic initiatives need not be publicized.
However, Hontiveros said it is highly possible that the Chinese government is not taking the Philippine leader seriously during their dialogues.
“It would be a good thing if that had been marked by mutual respect,” Hontiveros said in an interview on CNN Philippines’ The Source.
“China has opportunistically used the pandemic as a cover to further her excessive ambitions in the whole of the South China Sea,” she said.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros
(Senate of the Philippines / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
Hontiveros said President Duterte’s defense of the government’s response on the COVID-19 pandemic is not helping boost the people’s confidence as the increasing number of cases and deaths “speak for themselves.”
“Their photo ops, mere presence can’t substitute for that clear, coherent, empathetic and compassionate leadership. When you weigh his insistence that they were not remiss against the really sad and frightening numbers that keep climbing up, then we already know the truth, right? The evidence, the numbers of cases of the deaths speak for themselves,” Hontiveros said in an interview on The Source, CNN Philippines.