No bureaucracy in reopening businesses, please

At least the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez and National Task Force against COVID-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez are set to recommend the special guidelines to be observed for the reopening of barbershops, salons and dine-in restaurants. This means that many of our people who are out of work can return to their old workplace and work again in the hope that this would mean restarting our ill-fated economy due to our nearly three month lockdown, thanks to the coronavirus.

Again, I would like to point out very clearly that our fatality rate from the dreaded dengue fever produced more deaths than the COVID-19 and this does not even include those who died due to tuberculosis. In a statement, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said there could be an accreditation system or a strict operations audit procedure before those establishments will be allowed to open.

Its implementation will be done in coordination with DTI, health and safety officials of local government units, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG). At this point, I would like to suggest to the DTI and the other LGUs not to use government bureaucracy in restarting many business enterprises that have suffered because of the lockdown. They have suffered enough. So please don’t let them undergo the rigmarole in getting some kind of coordination certificates just to restart their business. Issue guidelines to them and let your enforcers check whether those establishments are following your guidelines.

Last Sunday, Lopez and Galvez conducted an inspection of three salons and barbershops to see health and safety protocol demonstrations.

Sec. Lopez pointed out that “the IATF recognizes that salons and barbershops employ over 400,000 people. While we want them to reopen in the general community quarantine, we also need to take into consideration the pressing concern that this industry, which may cause further transmission, should institute strict measures to prevent such risks of passing infection.” The IATF stresses the importance of balancing the health of the people and the reopening of our economy.

Let us all hope that small business enterprises that would reopen next week when our ECQ ends would follow the DTI guidelines so that we won’t have a situation that would lead us to a second wave in COVID-19. If you follow those guidelines, it would mean that you are doing your best to bring this economy back to its old self.

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Over a year ago in March 2019, one of the most gruesome crimes happened in Lapu-Lapu City when a pretty 16-year-old Christine Lee Silawan, who served the Church, was found dead in an empty lot with the skin on her face slashed and peeled off. It was so gruesome it made the national headlines. After a thorough investigation, a Renato Llenes, a resident of Tigcahon, Bankal, Lapu-Lapu City, was arrested on April 11, 2019 after he confessed to have been obsessed with Silawan whom he mauled and skinned after having caught in a heated argument during their meeting.

Well, the big breaking news that I got from The FREEMAN yesterday was that Llenes, the primary suspect in the killing, was found dead in his cell at the male dormitory of the Lapu-Lapu City Jail last Sunday. Jail Supt. Jessie Calumpang confirmed it only a day later.

Supt. Calumpang said it was around 6 a.m. Sunday when he was informed by a nurse that Llenes was rushed to the clinic after he was found lifeless in the restroom inside his cell in what appeared to be a suicide. Supt. Calumpang also said they had to move Llenes away from other inmates since he reportedly received death threats from Silawan’s uncle who is also detained at the same jail facility.

Meanwhile, Police Regional Office-7 Director Albert Ignatius Ferro himself ordered an in-depth investigation into the incident because, as Supt. Calumpang said, they are now investigating the possibility of a foul play. This as the condition in which Llenes was found did not seem to reflect the condition of other inmates who also committed suicide by hanging with protruding tongue from the mouth and clothes soiled by vomit. Indeed we need to know whether there was foul play here or not.

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