Thanks to them, we survive

It has been over a month already since the day most of us have been ordered to stay at home. Yesterday, President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases (IATF) to extend the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in high-risk areas which include Cebu City and Cebu Province.

For me, there are two things to keep in mind at this stage. First, we can reflect on how we have managed to survive the ECQ this long. Second, we now need to prepare for the new normal. The economy has to reopen at some point, albeit slowly and carefully guided by data and science.

On the first reflection, we thank the several branches and instrumentalities of government for continuing to function. In this crisis, public officials often get criticized when they make mistakes, act abusive, show lack of foresight, or fall short of expectations. Sometimes the criticisms are undeserved, but nevertheless public criticisms are a component of governance.

The functioning of government requires that public officials and employees take the risk to be in their offices and in the field --managing the delivery of essential services, regularly updating the public, and keeping order amid the ECQ. We thank our public servants and law enforcers for their service. We also thank the street cleaners, garbage collectors, and janitors.

We thank the fiscalizers, governance watch groups, and ordinary citizens who point out some of the flaws in some areas of the ECQ. We thank the journalists in print, radio, television, and the internet. Despite the odds and the risks, journalists still strive for accuracy and think carefully about the impact of their reporting. We thank them for valuing journalistic independence and their primary role as informants amid the grave crisis.

We thank the health workers. Although they are called frontliners, they are our last line of defense against this pandemic. We thank the health experts, the doctors and scientists who provide us expert advice and give us hope for a permanent solution.

We thank the civic groups and individuals who have organized donation drives and offered their resources and expertise. Though the pandemic is biological in nature, our collective experience in facing this crisis is social in nature. It is in community-wide initiatives at the village level where we help each other tide through the social disruption and economic hardship. These strengthen the fabric of social ties that bind us together as one community in this crisis.

On social media we read specific suggestions that motivate and guide us on how we can help other people. I particularly was touched by the suggestions for Sitio Zapatera, Barangay Luz, made by my high school buddy, Carlo Andrew Olano, proprietor of the popular food blog Kalami Cebu. His personal post last April 17 garnered 679 shares on social media.

Carlo not only appealed for understanding and compassion for Sitio Zapatera residents, he also came up with specific ideas to make the residents stay at home with some little comforts. Among these are the provision of free wifi, electric fans, water for drinking and bathing, disinfectants, soap, detergent, face masks, and alcohol. Children need milk, toys, and nursery books too, Carlo wrote.

We thank the farmers who cultivate the soil and harness the bounties of nature for our daily food consumption. They are our backliners. We thank the grocery staff and managers, the public market vendors, the wholesalers and warehouse operators. We also thank the food and grocery delivery services. From a distance, I always salute the delivery drivers every time they drop my orders at the doorstep.

We thank the public utility companies – the telecoms and power producers and distributors. Most have offered deferred payment schemes for their subscribers while assuring them of continuous service.

We thank the employers, entrepreneurs, and corporations for finding ways through online platforms that the talents and skills of their employees are still harnessed and not locked down with them in their homes. We thank those BPOs that housed their employees in hotels in the city in order to minimize the risk of infection. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement between employer and employees, yet it has also helped the hotel industry tide through this crisis.

Now, we cannot remain like this for long. The economy has to reopen at some point, very carefully based on the advice of experts. That’s the other consideration at this stage – preparing for the new normal – which I will take up in my next column.