Time to focus on restarting the economy

Wow. How a year just zipped by! Just a year ago, I left for my trip to London and eventually for my Scandinavian cruise. This also reminded me that it’s been a year since we had the May 10 elections that ushered a new breed of local government leaders in Cebu. It was also the first time that I failed to vote since my flight from Manila was early in the morning of Election Day. Anyway, a year ago, we returned Gov. Gwen Garcia to the Capitol, while Tomas Osmena lost to Mayor Edgar Labella. We have new mayors: Mandaue City’s Jonas Cortes, Lapu-Lapu City’s Ahong Chan, and Talisay City’s Samsam Gullas.

Now all these LGUs are getting educated on what to do to fight an unseen enemy like the coronavirus. Of course the loyal followers of former mayor Tomas Osmeña missed the days when he was the mayor. But in these dire times, we would have loved that our politicians to lump and work together as a team to fight COVID-19. But instead, Osmeña has done nothing but list out alleged corruption deals by the administration of Mayor Labella.

In truth, being a former Ombudsman himself, Mayor Labella knows that he should never enter into questionable deals unless they can be explained to the public and apparently he has already explained this in detail. What in effect has been proven is that, during the time of Mayor Osmeña, his purchases of basic commodities actually was more than what Cebu City is buying today. So who really is corrupt? But then elections are still faraway to really discuss something that is political. So you politicos just have to wait until election season is here.

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President Rodrigo Duterte was expected to decide yesterday on the fate of Metro Manila and other coronavirus high-risk areas still under enhanced community quarantine or ECQ. The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on COVID-19 pandemic was supposed to meet to discuss whether to retain or relax the restrictions in ECQ areas after May 15, which is this coming Friday.

Aside from Metro Manila, other areas under ECQ until Friday are Central Luzon, except Aurora province, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), Pangasinan, Benguet, Albay, Iloilo including Iloilo City, Cebu including Cebu City, Bacolod City, Zamboanga City and Davao City.

“On Monday, we expect the President’s approval on what will happen to us on March 16.”

I looked up the fatality rate in the areas supposedly with the highest number of cases. Quezon City has 1,558 confirmed cases with 121 deaths. Cebu City has 1,571 confirmed cases with only 11 deaths. Actually, the records from Cebu City Health Office only had seven deaths. Manila has 833 cases with 69 deaths, while Paranaque has 500 cases with only 39 deaths. Makati has 477 cases with 30 deaths.

Why was there a difference in the DOH numbers versus Cebu City Health numbers? I really don’t know. But for me, the death rate in Cebu City, whether it is seven or eleven, is of no major consequence if you compared the death rate in New York City.

At this point, I would like to emphasize that with our death number pegged at a high of eleven since the ECQ began, it is still remarkable despite the fact that so many people living in many sitios or barangays do not even follow social distancing, which for me is one of the best ways to ensure that there would be no spreading the coronavirus disease.

I’d also like to know what really is the death rate for Cebu City before the COVID-19 struck us? This is one thing that was never published and only published now for infected patients who died. Let me tell you this: There was a time when St. Peters Funeral home had something like 12 dead bodies lying in wait to be cremated. That was only for that week. Our 11 deaths from COVID-19 started in April and half of May.

With Friday May 15th the last day of our ECQ, the first question we should be asking is, should we extend this deadline or not? For me, with only 11 deaths due to COVID-19, we must now focus on restarting our economy. This is now more important to Cebuanos than focusing on keeping our death rate as low as possible.

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