COVID-19 IN THE PHILIPPINES

(REFLECTION)

We were not alone in underestimating the COVID-19 threat. With every country
intimately linked to China, where this disease started infiltrating, the rest of the world
was similarly caught flat-footed. But while our health systems are not as advanced as
other countries, we could have done a lot better.
We Filipinos are no strangers to disasters. Regular exposure to various natural hazards
have built innate resilience in our people. The only thing different here is that the threat
concerned is a virus, which cannot be seen by the naked eye.
(a) Since its creation, the rest of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of
Emerging Infectious Diseases haven’t given us any solid plan for the pandemic. The
social welfare department has, in effect, been rationing already stingy cash aid with
unduly strict requirements. The health department isn’t testing, tracing, isolating, and
treating as much people as they should for want of resources. This self-imposed
limitation gravely undermines the public health response, risks undue infections and
deaths, and will mean socioeconomic difficulties on a massive scale. This leads to the
second problem, which is the poor are paying for it more than they should, through debt
and higher taxes, while the rich are paying much less than they can. In the long run, the
poor will continue to be poor while the rich are sitting pretty inside their houses.
(b) The fact that our medical frontliners are forced to go to work without personal
protection equipment and the lack of coordination in the way the quarantine or lockdown
protocols were implemented shows just how much we failed in protecting our frontliners,
which includes our doctors, nurses, policemen, and a lot more people working as the
backbone of our paralyzed community. Taking the current death toll into consideration,
we have to take a better approach on how we can protect them, as they are the first
ones that catch the blow of the virus and succumb to its costs.
(c) To move forward, it is crucial to assess and acknowledge where we failed and
provide a clear accounting of where the gaps are. Transparency and humility on the part
of the political leadership is key to helping this country heal as one. We failed in this
critical part when Philippine authorities failed to accurately assess potential exposure
and vulnerability to COVID-19, even though we have been pivoting more closely
towards China politically and economically in recent years. A red flag should have been
raised when the first case, a tourist from Wuhan, was confirmed on January 30 this
year.
(d) The government must act quickly to ensure that businesses can survive, jobs are
secure, and the most vulnerable members of society are protected. New measures on
the “new normal” should be issued to get businesses back on its track. With our country
facing possibly the world’s longest lockdown, we need to reemerge again to gain back
what we lost. If we continue battling COVID-19 this way, in the end, it will all be too late.
(e) COVID-19 will produce both positive and negative indirect effects on the
environment, but the latter will be greater. Looking at other countries, there is actually a
significant association between contingency measures and improvement in air quality,
clean beaches and environmental noise reduction. This may be because of the
shutdown of factories due to lockdowns. On the other hand, there are also negative
secondary aspects such as the reduction in recycling and the increase in waste, further
endangering the contamination of water and land spaces, in addition to air.