EDITORIAL - Curfew

A video of people getting into a fight outside a bar in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City, made its rounds in social media recently. This was not the only one. Earlier there was also a brawl in a Talisay City bar, again between two groups of people, which was also caught on video.

Because there is still a pandemic going on and also because the two incidents happened within days of each other, some people are raising proposals to reimpose the curfew for adults.

But this is something the Cebu City government isn’t keen on, according to Councilor Joel Garganera.

Reimposing a curfew for adults with have its pros and cons.

On the plus side we are preventing the spread of the coronavirus again.

We are fresh from two years of lockdown as well as recovery from the thrashing wrought by super typhoon Odette. Many people are in a celebratory mood and immediately want to resume the activities they engaged in before the lockdowns. These include going on trips, hanging out with friends and, of course, bar hopping and drinking late into the night.

These activities always carry the risk of getting or spreading the coronavirus, never mind how “invisible” it has become lately from everyone’s consciousness. For some people, we can even say the threat may have completely disappeared already.

As another plus, we may be protecting people from violence. Again considering how many are still figuratively drunk on the feeling of their renewed freedom of movement and activities, they might feel free to take certain liberties as well as rash actions.

On the minus side reimposing curfew means some businesses will have to be limited again. And this always means losses when it comes to income as well as morale.

Reimposing curfew will also negatively impact on our tourism activities, something that we badly want to return to normal.

If the government doesn’t want to reimpose curfew for adults it must take care to beef up security in areas where such incidents are likely to happen.

Of course, the people have a hand in this too. To avoid a possible reimposition of curfew for adults, they should realize that while things appear to be normal now --at least based on the times before the pandemic started-- we aren’t really quite there yet.