Mayor skips first presscon on COVID-19 to meet Miss Cagayan de Oro bets

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines – Cagayan de Oro Mayor Rolando Uy skipped what would have been his first news conference as the city’s chief executive to be with contestants in the 2022 Search for Miss Cagayan de Oro.

The press conference was organized on Monday morning, July 18, where the new mayor was supposed to outline his administration’s health policy, and announce what he intends to do in the next three years to keep COVID-19 from crippling the city again.

City hall officials, however, said Uy had a change of mind and decided to skip the event at the eleventh hour because the Miss Cagayan de Oro 2022 delegation paid him a visit in his office.

Instead, Uy sent a group of four physicians – city health officer Rachel Dilla, city epidemiologist Joselito Retuya, and medical officers Teodoro Yu Jr. and Ina Grace Chiu – to face reporters.

The Cagayan de Oro City Information Office posted photos of Uy receiving the Miss Cagayan de Oro contestants in his office.

“Before we came here, we were in the mayor’s office, and there were many visitors,” Dilla told reporters.

The press conference was supposed to have been the first for Uy as mayor, organized after Cagayan de Oro saw the number of active cases of COVID-19 infections doubling in two weeks since he assumed his new post.

Yu, who keeps the city’s COVID-19 data, said the number of active cases went up to 59 last weekend from 36 cases recorded on Tuesday, July 12.

Data showed that the city registered 18 active cases on June 29, the last full day of office of then-mayor Oscar Moreno.

Moreno led Cagayan de Oro during the first two crucial years of the pandemic that was characterized by community lockdowns and strict public health protocols.

Cagayan de Oro’s response to the pandemic was widely admired by nearby local governments that newly elected Iligan City Mayor Frederick Siao hired one of Moreno’s key health officials, Dr. William Bernardo.

Bernardo was the acting Cagayan de Oro health officer and headed the city’s Universal Health Care Program.

Dilla gave his assurance that the Cagayan de Oro health office has enough good doctors and nurses to answer the health needs of residents.

She said they would implement a vaccination program that would inoculate the remaining residents in the city.

In the CHO’s July 15 vaccination report, Chiu said 555,972 residents, or 91.90% of the population eligible for inoculation were already given their second doses.

Dr. Chiu, who heads CHO’s COVID-19 vaccination team, said the city lags in administering booster shots – only 147,555 residents have been boosted so far. – Rappler.com