Senator Win Gatchalian is urging the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to provide more decent quarantine homes for returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to ensure their health and safety during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) still in effect, Senator Win Gatchalian is urging the Department of Health (DOH) to ensure the continued delivery of health care programs in Local Government Units (LGUs) under the “Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Mag-Nanay Act” (Republic Act 11148) or the “First 1,000 Days Law,” which he co-authored.

With the national government set to replicate Valenzuela City’s inclusion of Persons Under Monitoring (PUMs) in mass testing activities, Senator Win Gatchalian said Local Government Units (LGUs) will be better equipped in tracking down asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 as this is crucial in containing the virus.

In the lead up to this year’s World Immunization Week, which takes place April 24-30, Senator Win Gatchalian called on Local Government Units (LGUs), especially the barangays, to ensure that immunization services are not compromised despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the incidence of new COVID-19 cases growing by the day, Senator Win Gatchalian said Local Government Units (LGUs) should lead in the fight against the dreaded COVID-19, emphasizing that Test, Quarantine and Treatment (TQT) are the steps that LGUs should take to stem the tide.

As the country conducts COVID-19 mass testing on Tuesday, Senator Win Gatchalian raised the need to do 10,000 mass testings a day to make the extended Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) reliable.

Senator Win Gatchalian is appalled over what he calls a sluggish COVID-19 testing capacity of the Department of Health (DOH). The senator recently found out that the DOH has yet to accredit any hospital to carry out COVID-19 testing even after pronouncements made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the newly delivered test kits from South Korea and China are now available for commercial use.

Considering the speed by which the number of positive cases is increasing, Senator Win Gatchalian urges the whole government to be involved and proactively seek out persons at risk of contracting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Senator Win Gatchalian will file a bill regulating the sale of e-cigarettes, vapes and other electronic nicotine and non-nicotine delivery systems in the Philippines as the country reported its first electronic cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury (EVALI) case.