Flattened or flat line

After hearing so many concerns on the matter, I decided to have LTO chief Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante on AGENDA to explain to the viewers what the PMVIC is and why are car owners worried about it?

PMVIC stands for Private Motor Vehicle Inspection Center, a concept set up by the Department of Transportation or DOTr in order to modernize, complete and meet the required testing of all motor vehicles for road worthiness. They are stand-alone centers that will be built by independent investors in pre-determined locations all over the country. These centers will feature state of the art or modern equipment designed to test 61 points for road worthiness such as brakes, lights, engine condition, emission, passenger safety (seat belts, seats etc.), instrumentation, tires, internal and external matters such oil leaks, cooling system, etc.

In return for these wide ranging tests, vehicle owners will be paying these GUESTIMATE prices that are still being recalibrated: SUVs to AUVs to MPVs P1,500; Sedans and hatchbacks P1,000; jeeps to jeepneys P750; motorcycles-tricycles P500 while buses and heavy equipment is estimated at P2,500 to P3,000. All these clearly bring motor vehicle ownership to a higher level of maintenance and responsibility and will help weed out who should and should not be on the road. My only suggestion to Secretary Tugade is to find a way to prevent the “asbusados” or Abusive Anti-Smoke Belching units from invalidating the valid tests conducted by the PMVIC. The DOTr through the LTO should be the only authority on the matter.

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Flattened or flat line?

I’m sorry but in contrast to the best efforts of government officials to portray improving statistics and control of Covid-19, I have been receiving information and “stories” from physicians in the frontlines that in spite of the compromise MECQ the government imposed last month, there have been increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases showing up at hospitals. While the UP mathematicians have cautiously but happily reported that the numbers are going down and the rate of reproduction has also gone down, the fact remains that the data they rely on and analyze get to them at least a week if not two weeks old. It is also worth mentioning what former secretary of health Esperanza Cabral pointed out on our show AGENDA: “The curve may be flattening but if it is flattening at thousands of cases per day that is still not a good situation.” Further to that, the question remains: Is the curve flattening or is this a momentary consequence of the last MECQ?

The only good news is that most of the cases are not critical cases but are mild or asymptomatic referrals. This is a blessing in disguise because there are still not enough hospital beds to treat really sick patients. The One-Hospital referral system of the government does not create more beds, it simply places more pressure if not a veiled threat on hospitals to admit COVID-19 patients or else or face charges. Sergio Ortiz-Luis in our interview emphasized the need for government to fast track the construction and availability of “Quality hospitals.” As president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, Ortiz-Luis represents presidents, CEOs and owners of many companies all over the Philippines. As far as the COVID-19 situation is concerned, they remain very unhappy about the state of public transport and the availability of treatment for employees and daily wage earners. As Dr. Tony Leachon once pointed out: “You cannot have a healthy economy with a sick population.”

One of my younger doctor friends who is also a COVID-survivor has started having second thoughts about his situation because the continuing exposure now forces him to make a choice every time he goes home from work: Will he continue to place his young family at risk or should he stay in the (government) hospital and sleep on the floor, plastic chairs, etc. or should he revert to GP status and do tele-medicine from home? The same challenges now confront thousands of nurses and the sad reality is that I have continuously heard from frontliners deciding to cut back, resign or take jobs away from the frontline or work abroad where there are resting facilities, PPEs, work shifts that are time bound and honored. A further complication to the matter is how government’s salary rationalization and praise worthy compensation for teachers, cops and now nurses, has made government the direct competition of private hospitals that have been seeing an exodus of their staff to government hospitals, if not abroad. Private hospitals are somewhat trapped in a financial sinkhole because they can’t pay the same wages of a government nurse who is subsidized by the state and not a business. To make matters worse, many private hospitals are scratching the bottom of the well as PhilHealth payments go into suspended animation on top of the previously delayed payments.

If you’re looking for another silver lining here, sorry there’s none. What I have is a warning for the young adults, the people who are now happily commuting, biking to offices and factories, all glad to be working and having some sort of normalcy. You are now the target of COVID-19. Reports indicate both here and abroad that the fastest growing populations of victims are in the 20 to 40 years age range. Word has it that if seniors die in relation to pneumonia or respiratory failure, the young and mobile are dying from strokes, heart failure. It’s like they fight so hard but the pump and the plumbing simply fall apart. Whatever we do, let’s all pray against flat lines!

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