"Consider their ultimate sacrifice."
"Consider their ultimate sacrifice."
We are left with no choice but to gradually reopen the economy in the face of the continuing coronavirus pandemic after almost three months of community quarantine.
As of this writing, confirmed COVID-19 cases have reached 21, 895, including 1,003 deaths and 4,530 recoveries.
But, Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello himself had warned of unemployment of up to 10 million, particularly in Metro Manila, due to the lockdown and business inactivity.
That’s not to mention the tens of thousands of repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have ended up jobless with no hope of being deployed again soon.
The P8,000 to P5,000 Social Amelioration Program (SAP) cash dole under the expired Bayanihan to Heal As One Act barely appeased the hunger and suffering of the poor.
Thousands of those who deserved the cash aid did not receive anything at all due to corruption and irregularities at the barangay level.
The distribution of the P85 billion second tranche of the SAP cash and the P1.3 trillion Philippine economic stimulus act are still up in the air.
Meantime, it’s back-to-work for hundreds of thousands of laborers in Metro Manila still without ample mass transportation available. That includes my barber who comes to work on a bike now.
In fairness to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), it appears the five factors it had listed as conditions to ease the community quarantine have been met: the flattening in the COVID-19 epidemiological curve, increase in the number of testing centers and in the capacity of the healthcare system.
We have witnessed the unbelievable devotion and courage of health workers including doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians, paramedics, volunteers and hospital support staff.
Sadly, among those who succumbed to the disease include a growing number of health workers themselves, including 32 doctors.
It's truly heartbreaking that it took President Duterte to personally order Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III to make sure that each of the aggrieved families of the deceased doctors received the P1 million compensation the government had promised.
Considering the ultimate sacrifice that the doctors made, their bereaved families deserve better.
Duque and other negligent DOH officials who should have readily attended to this matter must know that those dead colleagues of theirs not only deserve to be compensated.
More importantly, they deserve to tribute, honor and respect.
It looks like the rest of us will just have to live with the risk of contracting COVID-19 until a vaccine is discovered for its prevention and an effective antidote for its cure.
With everyone’s cooperation, we can eventually control the further transmission of this disease and flatten that curve while experts continue their research.
We can finally turn this around if each of us does our part and that is to strictly observe personal preventive measures against contracting coronavirus at all times.
Let us also continue to support the IATF efforts to isolate people who are sick. Trace the people who those sick people may have had contact with. Quarantine people who may have been exposed to the virus.
Avoid non-essential travel, avoid crowds and observe social distancing.
The bottom line is, under any circumstances, each of us is accountable for one’s own health and well-being. We’re all in this together and it’s up to us to cope with this crisis.
