Poverty and hunger are not crimes

"Many Filipinos are desperate for help."

The recent SWS survey showed that 83 percent of Filipinos believe that the quality of life worsened for them over a 12-month period. This is obviously ill-timed in the first place.

SWS conducted the survey last May 4-10, two months into the nationwide lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, there was resulting widespread joblessness and business shutdowns.

It’s likely the SWS would have drawn much different responses if it were done in December or before this pandemic.

That implies life could not have been as bad as when COVID-19 threw us into crisis and chaos, because Health authorities did not inform President Duterte that cases of infection were, in fact, underreported and that the DOH did not have the capacity for mass testing.

This week, we begin yet again the countdown to the President’s decision on the community quarantine for Metro Manila, Cebu City and elsewhere in the country based on the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).

Note that it’s seven days until June 30, by which time the UP Institute of Mathematics says the country will have seen at least 40,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The UP research group proved themselves right when they earlier advised against the lifting of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) last May 15 which might result in 24,000 cases by June 15. The number of COVID-19 cases breached 26,000 on June 15.

We’re at total 30,052 cases as of Sunday, June 21, of which 20,990 are active cases, 7,893 recovered, and 1169 deceased.

We should try to keep down the number of COVID-19 cases well under 10,000 from Monday (the time of this writing) until next Tuesday June 30th.

If COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the next few days – and it looks- like we’re going to hit 40,000 – I cannot imagine an upbeat IATF-EID meeting leading to endorsing a Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) for NCR next month.

On the other hand, it is the government’s job to do everything to alleviate the widespread poverty and hunger in the next 12 months until the SWS conducts another survey on how their life will have been by then.

It would be convenient for those concerned to attribute the people’s difficulties that the health calamity has brought but the government has the wealth of resources to make life livable for Filipinos.

It is what the government will do to improve the quality of life for Filipinos that’s more important.

The anomalous distribution of the initial cash from the Social Amelioration Program by the DSWD and DILG reduced Filipinos into beggars lining for alms.

I hope that the second tranche of the SAC reaches those poor people needed and not the beneficiaries of the unscrupulous barangay officials.

Over 50,000 OFWs have returned home with no clear prospects of returning to their jobs anytime soon.

In addition, thousands of locally stranded individuals (LSIs), including jeepney and bus drivers whose companies have shut down, need help to return home to provinces after losing their jobs in Metro Manila.

They all need help so obviously the Manong Digong’s knights of the round table have their jobs cut out for them in the days to come.

It’s beyond the war on drugs. It’s the war against COVID-19 and massive hunger and poverty which, if I may remind everyone concerned, are not crimes.