1.

How does Covid-19 pandemic affect the world in general and the Philippines in

particular?

The Covid-19 pandemic affects us all in aspects such as social, economic, and
wellbeing. When it comes to social aspects, people are prevented from going out and
socializing with other people because of risks of getting infected. It is part of the new
normal that we have to practice social distancing and asked to temporarily stop from
hanging out with friends, family, or even acquaintances and just stay at home which
greatly affects some people because they’ve lost their social life.

In economic aspects on the other hand, many people have lost their jobs
because of the imposed lockdowns restricting movement of citizens thus, businesses
particularly those in manufacturing and service sectors are affected. According to
McKeever (2020), the United Nations labor organization estimates that 25 million jobs
could be lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the Philippines alone as one of the
countries who have strictest and longest lockdown, over 7.3 million jobs are lost as of
June 2020 due to business shutting down according to Philippine Statistics Authority
(Teo, 2020). Only businesses providing basic needs such as food, medicine, utilities,
banks, and telecommunication companies are the ones who are at low risk of shutting
down because they are the only ones allowed to operate. However, many small
businesses under the same category have closed because of lack of consumers in their
area. This could lead to a fall in our economic status as we have the one of the highest
unemployment rate since the pandemic started.

Moving on, on the aspects of wellbeing, it is the one mostly affected since it is the
main target of the virus. As of the moment, there is a total of 26 million Covid-19 cases
worldwide with more than 800 thousand deaths recorded. In the Philippines, we are now
at more than 200 thousand cases with deaths of 3,737 and we ranked as number 22
with most number of cases worldwide (Worldometer, 2020). The number of deaths
implies that this pandemic really have great effects on our health, physically. Although,
Covid-19 does not just include physical wellbeing but also mental wellbeing. Research
shows that suicide rates spike amid the pandemic due to stress, depression, anxiety,
etc. that the pandemic brings us. According to Nortajuddin (2020), suicide ratio around
the world have increased since the pandemic started and this includes the Philippines
with 3.2 suicide ratio. The World Health Organization states that the pandemic really
have a great impact on people’s mental health and quoted the reason which is “Social
isolation, fear of contagion and loss of family members is compounded by distress
caused by loss of income and often employment.”

Generally speaking, the pandemic really affects the poor people the most
because they are the ones who are most vulnerable when it comes to all the aspects
mentioned above. Many of them is probably struggling for food, shelter, and other basic
needs because they’ve lost their daily source of income. Some of them in reality, doesn’t
 care about the virus anymore and still goes out looking for jobs/source of income just to
sustain their daily needs because if they don’t they might die because of hunger and not
of the virus itself.

2. Identify concrete acts of cooperation between the Church and the State amidst the
covid-19 pandemic in the Philippines?

According to Vatican News (2020), one of the concrete acts of cooperation

between the Church and State amidst the pandemic in the Philippines is when the
government asked for the Church’s help in the rising suicide rates of the country. Justice
Secretary Menardo Guevarra, a member of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the
Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) said, “[We] respectfully request
our spiritual leaders to bring this much-needed message of hope to our suffering
countrymen in order to stave off more incidents of self-destruction.” On the other hand,
the government did praise the Church for its efforts of having donation drive during the
pandemic and Presidential Spokesperson, Harry Roque, mentioned that they should
keep it up and coordinate with the local government authorities in order to be issued with
quarantine pass (Calleja, 2020).

References

Peter, J. (2020, April 28). Philippine govt praises church pandemic efforts. Retrieved September
4, 2020, from ucanews.com website: https://www.ucanews.com/news/philippine-govt-
praises-church-pandemic-efforts/87859#
McKeever, V. (2020, March 19). Nearly 25 million jobs could be lost globally due to the
coronavirus, UN labor organization estimates. Retrieved September 4, 2020, from CNBC
website: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/nearly-25-million-jobs-could-be-lost-globally-
due-to-the-coronavirus.html
‌Nortajuddin, A. (2020, August 11). Suicide Spikes Amid Pandemic? Retrieved September 4,
2020, from The ASEAN Post website: https://theaseanpost.com/article/suicide-spikes-
amid-pandemic
Teo, D. (2020, June 7). Over 7.3 million jobs lost in the Philippines due to COVID-19 | HRM
Asia. Retrieved September 4, 2020, from HRM Asia website: https://hrmasia.com/over-7-
3-million-jobs-lost-in-the-philippines-due-to-covid-19/
Vatican News. (2020, August 26). Philippines: Church’s message of hope sought by
government - Vatican News. Retrieved September 4, 2020, from Vaticannews.va website:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2020-08/philippines-government-asks-for-
church-help-amid-alarming-rise.html
Worldometer. (2020, September 4). Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic. Retrieved September 4,
2020, from Worldometer website: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/