"At isa pa, mayroon tayong mas mabigat na laban — at ito po iyong laban against COVID-19 (Besides, we have a big fight and this fight is against COVID-19)," Nograles said.

The vice president, the de facto leader of the opposition, has long been the target of disinformation by pro-administration accounts on social media since she was elected in 2016.

The DOH reported 28,007 additional infections, raising the caseload to 3,026,473.

Duterte said he and his officials would continue to appear before the public through television to provide information about the pandemic.

FDA officer-in-charge Oscar Gutierrez said the drug regulator has approved the application of the Department of Health for a special permit for the institutional use of Bexovid, the first generic version of Pfizer’s Paxlovid.

“The random antigen testing of consenting and volunteering passengers is intended to guide us in the adoption of any further needed measures."

DOH and DTI said that the purchase caps are meant to give Filipinos better access to these basic medicines.

Results of a genome sequencing run conducted on January 3 showed that 60.42% of 48 samples were positive for Omicron, while 37.5% were of the Delta variant.

"For that, we can use the hospital for its original purpose — give proper attention to other diseases that afflict our countrymen, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetics or those in need of dialysis, childbirth or babies,” Moreno said.

Comelec on Monday said it is verifying allegations in a Manila Bulletin report but said that some details of the report cast doubt on whether hacking actually happened.