Text by: Jennifer Manongdo
Photo by: Erlyn Pareja
UP Manila and Crowell Global Advisors (CGA) jointly held a workshop on April 21, 2025, at the Grand Hyatt Manila, which discussed the readiness of the Philippines to respond to large-scale emergencies such as a pandemic.
The workshop provided attendees a broad understanding of the World Health Organization’s Preparedness & Resilience to Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative, including its five pillars: Emergency Coordination, Collaborative Surveillance, Community Protection, and Access to Countermeasures & Clinical Care.
Participants assessed how the country responded to COVID-19 and tackled areas that should be strengthened should another pandemic arise. Among the recommendations made by the participants include a change in the composition of the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) to include frontliners and the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAP), a centralized policy dissemination to avoid confusion and inefficiencies in implementation, a digital system accessible to the public to combat misinformation and ensure transparency, an improvement on the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation’s billing policies, and utilizing the laboratories of private hospitals to improve limitations in the current surveillance system.
Dr. John Anonuevo, who served as chairman of the Department of Medicine when the Philippine General Hospital was designated as one of the COVID-19 referral centers, reflected on the lessons from the pandemic. He emphasized the need for an improved referral network system, logistical preparedness, continuous staff training, and innovative healthcare systems to ensure uninterrupted care even during health emergencies. These include telemedicine and a command center coordinating hospital responses.
Representatives from various government sectors and nongovernment agencies attended the event, including the Department of Health, Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of Science and Technology, National Academy of Science and Technology, Philippine General Hospital, Ateneo de Manila University School of Medicine & Public Health, Philippine Nurses Association, Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, and the National Economic and Development Authority, among others.
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