These are times we shouldn’t get sick or die

These are indeed trying times. We already heard of the three frontline doctors in Metro Manila who died because of COVID-19 and at this point we can only pray for them and for the other frontliners, doctors, nurses, aides who are in their hospitals helping the sick and comforting them at this hour. We are approaching our first week under community quarantine, we just have to endure three more weeks. Also in Italy more than 50 priests have died due to COVID-19 and many more infected by this virus.

Incidentally, the mother of a family friend had a heart attack and is now in a hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. Their problem is that her husband is in Manila, which is also on lockdown, so he cannot come to Cebu to comfort his wife. He even wanted to charter a private plane to come home, but the problem is finding a pilot to fly the plane. However, if he could do that or even fly on a military aircraft, he still has to be quarantined 14 days before he can come and visit his wife. Indeed, this isn’t a good time to be sick.

Also it is not a good time to die because wakes are discouraged and there are no priests who can say the funeral Mass for the dead, unless you have a good friend priest who can help you. Worse is if you have a relative who dies of COVID-19. This means that the remains have to be cremated immediately so the virus can no longer infect anyone. So this isn’t a good time to get sick or die.

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Still on COVID-19, the Department of Health last Sunday confirmed 73 new local cases of coronavirus disease, bringing the national tally to 380. There are now 25 deaths and 15 recoveries as of last weekend. Health Assistant Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the continuing number of high cases after the highest single-day spike was recorded Saturday at 77 infections was due to stabilizing laboratory capacity.

Meanwhile, Congress met for a special session last Monday to, "authorize the president to exercise powers necessary to carry out urgent measures to meet the current national emergency relating to the COVID-19." Congress may grant Duterte power to take over the operations of any privately-owned public utility or business affected with public interest if the need arises. Of course, we need such a law to empower Duterte to do what’s needed as the case arises.

However, granting Duterte such power to take over a private company isn’t a walk in the park. It isn’t easy for a government to take over a private firm simply because its employee component aren’t used to the ways a government agency or government-controlled corporation is run. So Congress should be careful in enacting such a law.

What Congress is planning is to give Duterte a law similar to the War Powers Acts enacted during World War II. It was then that Ford Motor Corp. or General Motors shifted their auto assembly plants into manufacturing 6x6 trucks, Sherman tanks, jeeps, and airplanes, which were run mostly by women as their husbands had to fight in the war.

Then during the Korean War, a new law called the Defense Production Act or DPA was enacted giving the US President a broad set of authorities to influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense. The authorities can be used across the federal government to shape the domestic industrial base so that, when called upon, it is capable of providing essential materials and goods needed for the national defense.

In fact during a press conference in Washington D.C., President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter why he has not invoked the Defense Production Act in order to provide necessary medical equipment to treat patients. Trump said, “If we need it, and we will have it all completed, signing it in just a little while. We have targets for certain pieces of equipment. We have targets for masks. ... We need respirators. We need ventilators, but private companies have volunteered to do this as of the moment, so it is being done.”

But frankly speaking, I doubt if Congress is thinking along the lines of the US Defense Production Act, it probably would give additional powers to the Office of the President in terms of pushing for local government units to perform better in times of crisis.