Bloomberg study that ranked PH at bottom of COVID-19 resiliency 鈥榖iased鈥� 鈥� DILG
DILG Usec. Jonathan Malaya. File photo from DILG
MANILA, Philippines — The latest international COVID-19 report which ranked the Philippines at the bottom for the second straight month is “biased towards Western countries,” Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said on Thursday.
Malaya said that many of the 53 countries included in are western countries that are “welfare states,” while the criteria of the report is “very difficult to meet” for developing countries such as the Philippines.
This, Malaya said, puts the country at a disadvantage.
“In my opinion, it is really a biased survey towards Western countries,” he said over ABS-CBN 黑料社 Channel.
The indicators used in Bloomberg’s report include vaccination coverage, containment of the virus, the severity of lockdowns, quality of healthcare, progress toward restarting travel, and the overall mortality throughout the pandemic.
Article continues after this advertisementMalaya also noted that the country is not the lowest in the world, pointing out that there are only 53 countries out of more than 200 countries in the world. He also noted that the country’s ranking is at par with our neighboring Southeast Asian countries.
Article continues after this advertisement“That is really unfair for the Philippines, while it did assess our neighboring ASEAN countries, it did not assess a lot of countries in Asia,” he said.
“If you will look at the result, we are together with our neighboring countries there,” he continued.
Southeast Asian countries remained at the end of the list, with Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines landing in the bottom six, according to the Bloomberg report.
Malaya, however, is optimistic that the country’s ranking would improve next month, with the country’s decreasing cases of new coronavirus, as well as the improving vaccine coverage in the country.
“We’re getting there. I would expect an improvement to the ranking by next month,” Malaya said.
In September, the under the same report.
EDV
For more news about the novel coronavirus click
What you need to know about Coronavirus.
For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH Hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.
The Inquirer Foundation supports our healthcare frontliners and is still accepting cash donations to be deposited at Banco de Oro (BDO) current account #007960018860 or donate through PayMaya using this
