Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 22) — President Rodrigo Duterte warned that he will not follow any court order that will interfere with the national government’s efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I will not obey the courts in the matter now of management [of] the pandemic. I do not want anybody from any government agency or department messing up with a situation which is being managed because it is very dangerous to the country,” he said during his weekly address.
This reaction comes after two lawyers in Cebu filed a case for declaratory relief against the government’s pandemic task force on the province’s protocols for returning Filipinos, seeking to make a resolution by the body “inapplicable and ineffective” within the province.
READ: Cebu lawyers file case against IATF over protocols for returning Filipinos
Under Resolution No. 114 of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, returning Filipinos are required to stay in a quarantine facility for 10 days and undergo swab testing seven days after their return.
However, a local ordinance in Cebu allows testing upon arrival. If the test yields negative, they will be allowed to go home to complete the mandatory quarantine and another test on the seventh day.
Duterte said that the matter is of national interest and that all actions of the national government are based on the recommendations of medical experts. He also emphasized that he would do “what is necessary to protect the people.”
“This is not a question of justice and equity. This is a question of survival of the nation,” the president said.
Duterte also said that they do not agree with the protocols being imposed by Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia, and that he leaves the fate of the governor to the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
“An ordinance of a government unit cannot be higher than a national policy. The policies that we are dishing out are not mere policies. They are guided by the proclamation, and they are the laws,” he added.
