ECQ, the second time around

We woke up last Tuesday morning to the news that our city has been placed back to the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) status. The government pronouncement that we shall then be again subjected to severe restrictions was not easy to accept. But that is the cruel reality even as hope that the planned appeal of Mayor Edgardo Labella to keep our city within the GCQ loop would succeed. After all, the mayor must have a load of good and valid reasons convincing enough for the IATF to view our situation differently from being placed in the ECQ.

Some quarters claim that we, the ordinary mortals, refused to observe health regulations. Accordingly, we are to blame for the continued surge of those tested positive registered in the statistical curve of the pandemic chart. I am not with them. The number of adherents of this blame game may be huge but highlighting our collective failures will not right the wrong that we, as a community, did, if ever. Neither do I share with the view that the city mayor and our health authorities have failed to provide the appropriate leadership direction to address this crisis. I am certain that they are doing their best to help find a way to stop the infections.

I will not join the big horde of opinion makers in the bashing of our fellowmen exercising freedom from restraints when GCQ was implemented. Likewise, I do not have the kind of criticism many learned and ordinary citizens raise against our leaders. Rather, as OFF TANGENT, I take out of context the title of the song “The Second Time Around” and apply its corrupted phraseology to our eerie situation. I do this in the fervent hope that we somehow mitigate our looming depression.

We were once placed under the ECQ. As the song goes, this quarantine imposition is the second time around. During the first ECQ, offices in both government and the private sectors closed for more than a month. Almost all economic activities ground to a halt. Movement of people stopped. Life, to many, was extremely difficult. So, when the quarantine was downgraded to GCQ, most of us galloped like horses that broke free from the stable.  It was bad that we failed to observe protocols relevant to the new order, the failure of government to show us how to conform to the demands of the new normal aggravated the unexpected chaos.

First case. While government aimed to start the economy with the GCQ on June 1, its agencies failed to provide the necessary means of public transportation to move people. Many employees had no ride because, among other things, transport authorities did not previously process the papers for jeeps and buses to ply their routes. This second ECQ gives transport officials the time to draw a plan on how to make an efficient transport system. While ECQ is in force, authorities must prepare all documents for public utility vehicles to run the very minute the quarantine is lifted.

Second case. There is a spiraling worldwide preference for bicycles as an alternative method of transportation. The use of bikes has economic and environmental advantages. Now that ECQ limits travel, let planners provide a road system for the use of cyclists. Bike lanes, parking spaces and rest rooms for bikers have to be put in place.

These two concerns are only examples of things our officials can be busy with in this new quarantine period. I believe there are more important matters they need to work on the second time that this ECQ is around.