“Local officials who "do not enforce COVID-19 policies" may be held accountable for dereliction of duty under the Revised Penal Code.”
What Vera Files found
Dereliction of duty under Section 208 of the Revised Penal Code covers only “any public officer or officer of the law” who “maliciously refrain[s] from instituting the prosecution” of law violators or “tolerate[s] the commission of offenses.” The Local Government Code of 1991, the Administrative Code of 1987, and/or other laws specific to the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than the RPC, are more applicable to local chief executives, such as mayors or barangay chairpersons, for dereliction of duty.
Their words, from the summary they publish with the rating.
In short
Rodrigo Duterte made this claim around 28 April 2021. Vera Files (Philippines) looked into it and published its finding on 21 May 2021, 23 days later. Its rating was “Needs Context”.
Rodrigo Duterte has 126 checked claims in this archive. Fact-checking organisations rated 46 of them false or fake, 78 misleading or mixed and 0 true.
Where the claim appeared
- pcoo.gov.phhttps://pcoo.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/20210428-Talk-to-the-People-of-President-R…
- YouTube videohttps://youtu.be/DmZdmfZ3QBg?t=742
Links recorded by Vera Files. Some posts may have been deleted since.
This check was done by Vera Files, not by DoesItStand. We list it so you can find it. Their full evidence and reasoning are in their article.