Presidential Security Group chief, Col. Randolph Cabangbang, yesterday called attention to the COVID-19 tests administered by the Philippine Red Cross among PSG personnel.
Cabangbang said the results were false positives.
While he pointed out that he is not in the position to question the PRC’s COVID-19 testing, Cabangbang said it is difficult to believe that those who tested positive were not showing any symptoms.
No less than President Rodrigo Duterte, himself, said that 187 out of 213 PSG personnel tested positive, based on the PRC-Manila laboratory result, but yielded negative in their confirmatory tests. The president then tasked the Department of Health to make its own investigation.
On one hand, the PRC stands by the integrity of the tests done in its laboratories. While it admits the possibility of false positives, the organization pointed out that no test is 100 percent accurate. Erring on the side of caution, the PRC stated that even the DOH encourages that all positive results should be treated as true positive. The organization explained that the methodology and procedures in all its 13 molecular laboratories in the country are standardized.
As to the call of the president for an investigation, PRC chairman, Senator Richard Gordon, said they are open to it. He said the PRC has always submitted test results to the DOH and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and they even developed a computer program for faster transmission of data.
The inconsistency in the results of COVID-19 testing certainly needs to be investigated. The devastation brought by the pandemic is almost insurmountable that claims of false positives create more confusion. Most people would like to hear factual and scientific explanations on these conflicting test results, instead of innuendos and assumptions.
With the very public spat between President Duterte and Senator Gordon, the statement of Cabangbang on the false positives results among PSG personnel tested by PRC is tainted with hints of spitefulness. And with cases of COVID-19 increasing every day, fostering discord and provoking division on an issue that is, literally, a matter of life and death, is a low blow. Something that the nation does not need, right now. – NND
