Sec. Duque defends infomercials
“I’m a doctor, not a candidate”
Thus said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and lashed back at critics of infomercials, which have been denounced as early campaign schemes using public funds.
He maintained he has not expressed intent or any plan to seek a position in the 2010 election, and so he asked. “Why are they including me now in the so-called frivolous information campaigns of some officials who are alleged to be doing it to advance their own political agenda?”
The health secretary from Dagupan said that he has been making infomercials since 2005 as head of the Department of Health and are part of the education and information campaign on health issues.
The call to stop these are “making me inutile in my advocacy, in my information education campaign efforts on public health concerns,” he told The PUNCH in a phone interview.
Duque said it is not fair to him or to the DOH as a whole to include them in the “wholesale accusation” being made against infomercials.
“I have to put a face, credibility to the DOH program and I’m a doctor, an expert, I had my training in Georgetown and Harvard University who can best educate our people other than I as leader of my agency, yet they’re imputing malice,” he lamented.
He cited the recent issues of the Ebola Reston virus, the melamine scare, and the A (H1N1) disease, which he said, were produced “to create wider awareness on the facts and this was achieved instead of leaving the people to panic.”
“This was achieved due in large part to the DoH’s “vigorous infomercial”.
“It is my duty to communicate our programs,” he said. #
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