Department of Health (DOH) officials on Monday said they are willing to sit with OCTA Research to come up with comprehensive and accurate data on COVID-19.
At a hearing conducted by the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the department is willing to coordinate with the independent research group “to discuss and align our assumptions, the models being used, and the public announcements so that there will be no confusion among the public.”
Vergerie made the statement in answer to the question of Deputy Speaker Bernadette Herrera if the DOH and OCTA would collaborate on COVID-19 metrics and projections.
“Maybe the first thing we should do is to compare notes with OCTA to talks and to align the assumptions being used to determine where we can have an alignment and then after that, we can discuss on these public announcements to avoid confusion among the public,” Vergeire said.
“We are always open to sit and discuss with them the things that need to be flagged concerning the pandemic,” Vergeire added.
Herrera cited the need for coordination between the two “so that the data which would be released to the public would be transparent.”
Ranjit Rye, an OCTA Research fellow, said the group would continue working with the DOH.
“We are in complete agreement with Usec. Vergeire. We’re working with her and the team. We will continue to work with them and if there’s a way that we can do early warning because that’s really what OCTA does, monitoring early warning,” Rye said.
“We understand, it’s so hard in government, you have to go through bureaucracy before you release the same findings and data,” Rye added.
Rye also said: “[There] can be an arrangement where we continue to be autonomous but at the same time coordinated and constantly collaborating with DOH.”
The committee, chaired by Rep. Michael Edgar Aglipay of DIWA party-list has conducted hearings on the matter as Herrera led the filing of House Resolution 2075 urging the committee to conduct an inquiry on the qualifications, research methodologies, partnerships and composition of OCTA Research.
The resolution came after Dr. Edsel Salvana, a member of the government’s Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19, slammed OCTA for its allegedly unsound projections and sowing panic among the population.
The projections and warnings of OCTA Research on the COVID-19 pandemic are being considered by the national government and local government units, the most recent of which is the hard lockdown currently being implemented in NCR and other provinces in the country.