CEBU City Health Officer Daisy Villa was the “health authorities” sourced by a local daily for its April news report that carried the banner headline on Page 1, thus: “Entire Zapatera sitio infected.”
Twenty four new positive cases of Covid-19 were confirmed from Zapatera on that day. “The whole area is already considered as infected. Na-contact trace naman nato. Based sa atong nakuha, duna’y positive cases sa duhay ka tumoy sa sitio,” Villa was quoted.
Apparently because of that headline based on Villa’s pronouncement, a Facebook user, Ma. Victoria Beltran, made a four-line post about the Zapatera infection, thus: “9000+ new cases (all from Zapatera) of Covid 19 in Cebu City in one day. We are now the epicenter in the whole Solar System.” Beltran clearly exaggerated, yet her simple math on “entire sitio” counts the 9.000 plus residents in it. It was how she interpreted what she read in the news media.
Both Villa and Beltran were engaged in some form of hyperbole but Villa—with the news platform that splashed her story—was spared and only Beltran was arrested and charged.
Villa, looked up to by media as an authoritative source, may have failed to explain what her medical statement meant. Beltran, just a social media fan who is neither with DOH nor with a news organization, didn’t have to make her “satire” clear.
Delay in re-testing
Villa just figured in another controversy: The delay in re-testing patients isolated from Barangay Luz. She clashed last May 8 at the City Council with CityAdmistrator Floro Casas Jr. who fumed over the upset schedule of releasing recovered patients. Thus, City Hall couldn’t “prove that while the number of Covid-19 cases is going up, the number of recovering patients is likewise going up” Casas also wanted to free the space at the isolation center for expected new positive cases from the newly started rapid testing. Villa’s explanation: she was busy with collecting swab samples and contact tracing.
It appears to be case of administrative snafu. But when the friction exploded in public and appeared to fuel the inquiries of local legislators—particularly, Vice Mayor Michael Rama, Councilors Nestor Archival, Edu Rama and Alvin Dizon—the alleged lapses of Villa became relevant.
Gripes vs. health officer
That, on top of Casas’s complaint that Villa was being excluded from the rapid test project because of her failure to attend a series of meetings “despite notice.” Plus: She couldn’t be readily contacted or was always busy on the field. While Casas commended Villa for joining her field workers, she was needed for “formulating plans, policies, guidelines and coordinating actions.” Instead, Casas said, Villa would just send a representative to the project meetings.
Casas is administratively the boss of Villa and responsible for her success or failure. That he had to scold her publicly by exposing her alleged inadequacies also does not reflect well on management.
Management problem
It wasn’t just a simple problem of supervisor-subordinate relations. The coronavirus command center has to coordinate with the city health office regarding the Balik Buhay or rapid test project. And Villa as city health officer has to answer questions about the mass testing, how the persons tested were picked. “I was surprised,” Villa said, “that City Health is the lead agency for the project.” That, true or not, speaks volume of the problem in managing the huge enterprise.
The Casas-Villa public quarrel may be compared, in a smaller scale, to the confrontation between Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia and health officers at the Capitol last April 30. It turned out at a dialogue streamed to the public that the health officers didn’t fully grasp what Capitol supervisors wanted.
What needs to be solved
These are minor problems and even expected during bureaucracy’s regular course in ordinary times. But this is a period of emergency where the vaunted “enemy” follows no rules and is not hampered by any government worker’s lapse or incompetence.
People above Casas and Villa in the Balik Buhay project have to step in and fill the cracks. While Villa’s performance as city health officer “can be addressed once the crisis is over,” any problem created by it has to be solved now. It may not derail the project but it can create more complications.