Sonny Angara tests positive for COVID-19, becomes 3rd senator to contract disease

Senator Sonny Angara announced this afternoon that he has contracted COVID-19, making him the third senator to be infected with the disease.

In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Angara said he has “been feeling some symptoms like mild fever, cough, headaches and general weakness.”

“I have not been in contact with the public since taking the test last March 16,” he said. “I ask for your prayers that together we are able to pull through this tremendous challenge.”

“Let us continue to support all efforts to fight the further spread of the virus. Let us support our frontliners on the streets, in the emergency rooms as they are key to the effort,” he added.

Prior to his announcement, Angara’s colleagues in the Senate, Juan Miguel Zubiri and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel, had both announced that they too had contracted COVID-19, while their other colleagues, Sherwin Gatchalian and Nancy Binay, have been in self-quarantine after attending a March 5 hearing with a speaker who later tested positive for the coronavirus.

Of the three senators who tested positive, it’s Pimentel who has drawn public ire after it was revealed that he visited the Makati Medical Center after taking his test but before learning that he had tested positive, thereby possibly exposing its patients and health workers.

Netizens continued to vent their fury at Pimentel today after S&R, a grocery chain, confirmed from the store’s CCTV footage that he shopped in their Taguig City store on March 16, putting their workers and other shoppers at risk.

S&R said their employees who encountered Pimentel were put under quarantine and their store was disinfected.