Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Saturday said he will definitely resign as soon as he clears his name and that of his department over the deficiencies raised by the Commission on Audit in the handling of P67 billion COVID-19 response funds.
“I am stepping down,” Duque said in an interview with Dobol B TV.
“Just give me a little more time to fix all the COA observations and findings in the DOH,” the Health secretary added.
This is the first time Duque gave a categorical statement that he will resign.
On Friday, Senator Christopher Go, a close associate of the President, advised Duque to “make the supreme sacrifice when the right time comes” amid the public backlash over the COA findings.
Duque gave then a non-committal answer: “If the time comes when I need to resign, there’s no problem with me.”
Go’s advice came three days after President Rodrigo Duterte said he will accept it if Duque offers to voluntarily resign.
“This is my appeal. Let me clear the COA findings, the COA observations, [and lay down] our action plans to the recommendations, and then I am leaving,” Duque said on Saturday.
“It’s only a matter of time,” he added.
Duque said his resignation will not affect the government's COVID-19 response since the vaccination program is already ongoing.
Despite criticisms leveled against him, Duque expressed confidence that history will judge him fairly as the country's Health secretary during the pandemic.
“People will judge me with the number of deaths recorded. They will check if the number of deaths is similar to other countries where there are hundreds of thousands or one million people dead. Somehow, in our country, the death rate is low compared to other countries,” he said.
“So let the people be the judge. Unfortunately, their judgment won’t come anytime soon. We still have to wait until we achieve herd immunity, the people are already vaccinated, or once COVID-19 becomes an ordinary illness like common colds. If we achieve that, it means I have done my role,
ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Jocelyn Tulfo, however, said Duque should resign immediately as Filipinos have already lost their trust on him.
“Resign now before we here in Congress demand your forced resignation during the budget hearings. Secretary Duque, we have zero confidence in you. We cannot entrust the Department of Health budget to a health secretary we have no confidence in,” she said.
“You are not the leader the DOH needs to lead the country out of this pandemic. We cannot have a DOH secretary who lets our frontliners suffer. You create more problems than solutions. Resign now so President Rodrigo Duterte will accept your resignation as he has promised,” she added.
During the Senate hearing Friday, Go said he was advising Duque to step down because he pities the President who has to shield the Health secretary.
In April year, at least 14 senators co-authored a resolution pressing for Duque to resign, citing his "failure of leadership, negligence, lack of foresight, and inefficiency in performance" which led to "poor planning, delayed response, lack of transparency, and misguided and flip-flopping policies and measures" in addressing the pandemic.
The senators repeated their call for Duque to step down in September last year over the alleged massive corruption in the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.