DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 25 Aug) – Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte blasted on Tuesday members of prominent families after holding a grandiose wedding celebration here recently where a guest was later tested positive for the highly infectious coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Mayor Sara Duterte. Photo from the DCDR 87.5 Facebook page
During her live interview over Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR 87.5), Duterte said that local health authorities are already tracing the close contacts of over 40 guests who attended the wedding.
“According to the interview, there were 40 people there but, of course, there were more than 40 because there were suppliers, and the suppliers have employees. All of them have to be contact traced,” she added.
The mayor added that the City Legal Office is already looking into possible legal actions against them.
The mayor was enraged that they pushed through with a big celebration despite the declaration of a period of mourning and vigilance from April 17 until December 31, 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before the wedding, Duterte said that the wedding organizers had been reminded that pushing through with the wedding was very risky because it “could possibly be the source of the spread of the infection.”
“It’s very common among the rich to think they know everything. Because they have money, they can solve everything. The party happened, and guess what? Someone tested positive, and now we all do this contact tracing when it could have been avoided,” she lamented.
Duterte reminded Dabawenyos to shun grandiose occasions amid the COVID-19 threat, and show empathy to people, particularly the frontline healthcare workers who are going through a difficult period.
“I have encountered similar things like that, they were reminded beforehand and yet they pushed through. Later, some of them tested positive.
I wanted to tell them, ‘I told you so,’ but I’d rather not. What’s the point of telling them ‘I told you so’ when what we always discuss is the ‘ways forward’ because of your foolishness,” she added.
Duterte told the public that they endanger someone else’s life every time they break basic health protocols.
As of August 24, the Department of Health-Davao reported a total of 1,918 cases with 64 deaths and 1,411 recoveries.
Of the total, 1,227 were in Davao City, 153 in Davao de Oro, 206 in Davao del Norte, 101 in Davao del Sur, 40 in Davao Occidental, and 191 in Davao Oriental.
(Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
