“We challenge the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) and the Senate of the Philippines to do their job and reprimand Senator Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III for his irresponsible actions that have put in peril health workers and the public.

“All that talk about “social distancing”, “sumunod na lang kayo”, “please cooperate” and “stay at home” reminders mouthed day and night by Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles were consciously and willfully ignored by Pimentel who violated the Enhanced Community Quarantine and the RA 11332 or the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern.” Pimentel’s rash actions, in fact, merit sanctions ranging from one to six months imprisonment, with penalty ranging from P20,000 to P50,000, based on the Enhanced Community Quarantine mandatory measures.

“The DOH said the order for quarantine must be followed in earnest by everyone but Pimentel, a bar topnotcher and a former Senate President, consciously violated the quarantine rule, and failed to be transparent about this health status.”

“Local government units have rounded-up hundreds of violators of curfews, enhanced community quarantine, and stay-at-home policies in communities. The IATF must do the same to Pimentel to show how stern they really are in containing the virus and preventing the mass spread of this highly-infectious disease. As of March 25, cases of COVID19+ rose to 636 with 38 total deaths. Four medical frontliners were among the fatalities.

“Pimentel, a patient under investigation or PUI, already know that he poses risk to the public, and yet, he violated home quarantine rules and even attended parties, a hearing, and went to the hospital.”

The Makati Medical Center issued a statement saying that Pimentel breached the infection control protocol of the hospital’s delivery room and “his actions contributed no solution” and in fact “created another problem” for the hospital.

“We could only hope that Senator Pimentel did not infect anyone. As a veteran lawmaker, he should know better than to break their own self-serving rules,” said Mariano. ###

(Featured image grabbed from Sen. Koko’s Facebook page)