IATF rules increase chances of infection

Since Cebu City was placed under a General Community Quarantine (ECQ) on June 1, after nearly three months of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) I went around Cebu City for most of the week to check as to which businesses were opened and which remain closed. At this point, let me say that more than 70 percent of businesses do not operate or open up simply because they cannot hire back their old employees because most of them cannot take a ride on public transportation like they did in the past, and this also meant that their customers cannot flock to their stores. 

This includes a huge number of married people who usually take their family motorcycle to work and back. Since back riding is still not allowed by the Land Transportation Office (LTO), these workers decided not to return to work and remain jobless. So unless the IATF decide to make adjustments in their rules to make it easier for people to return back to work, I don’t think the economy would be recovering quickly as we would have wanted it to recover right away. So in short why is the IATF putting stumbling blocks for businesses to recover? 

Let me remind the IATF that most Filipinos for nearly three months kept silent and totally agreed or accepted the rules and guidelines that the Department of Health (DOH) has advised the IATF in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Thanks to their stringent rules, in three months we only had a thousand deaths, which is a small number compared to dengue fever or tuberculosis. In the US a hundred thousand people have already died.

However, three months later, we must now focus on the recovery of business establishments. There’s no question that we want our local businesses to recover right away, and they should never forget that many of the unemployed workers now have been joined by thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have returned to the Philippines because there is no more work in their host nations. This adds more problems to our labor sector, which by yearend would mean a huge drop in OFWs’ remittances!

At this point, I would like to make an earnest appeal to no less than Pres. Rodrigo Duterte that he shouldn’t allow the IATF to use the nation’s bureaucracy to make things difficult for our people, while at the same time increasing their chances of being infected by COVID-19. For getting a travel clearance for instance, you are required to get a medical certificate from your barangay, a police clearance, employment certificate and ID, requirements that many people have lined up for without social distancing, thus increasing their chances of getting infected by the virus. 

Incidentally, I have an uncle who lives in Los Angeles who was locked down in Cebu. Since he’s already retired years ago he wants to return to LA so he asked me what kind of employment certificate he must get? He was employed in Bank of America (BA) in LA! I know that we are still in Community Quarantine but if we get people to secure those requirements, their chances of getting infected with COVID-19 gets higher. 

People who live in Cebu City are genuinely concerned that the city runs the risk of being reverted back to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) if the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise before evaluation of quarantine status on June 14. Let me point out that whoever makes the decision regarding the status of Cebu City should have expected a rise in our GCQ status simply because at least some people are now trying to get back to their jobs. Like it or not, we have to face the reality that we are still in community quarantine because so far no available vaccine has been found for COVID-19.

 I understand that Dr. Tony Leachon, special adviser to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) under chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez, a leader in preventive health education and a health reform advocate, said the increasing number of cases in the first week of June, the first week that Cebu City was under GCQ, worried him. Since the end of March to the present I understand that there were only 36 deaths. This was also up from only 11 deaths in just two months. The whole trouble is that many of the deaths may not be through COVID-19 because they were never tested at all. 

At this point, putting Cebu City back to GCQ is going to be a huge mistake. I have already said that Cebu City’s deaths where only 36, which means we have been doing very well in keeping people from dying. The only reason for the recent spread of the virus comes from the reality that the shift to GCQ meant that many businesses are now allowed to open. However the IATF requirement for travel certificate for instance means people have to go to their barangays for that medical certificate. Stop this stupidity and fewer people will get infected!

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