EDITORIAL- Agree and disagree

President Duterte had some somewhat harsh words for Cebu during a press briefing the other night. These were his exact words around the topic of quarantine and the increasing number of cases here:

“Some provinces followed. Karon ang ubang, sige’g suroy. Mao ni ang nahitabo.”

“Mga taga Cebu, bakit marami. Because you were too confident and complacent. Ayan dumami.”

“Kamong mga Cebuano. Prangka na lang ta. Ayaw’g mo kasuko sa ako. This is not the first time, hinay ang lihok, yawyaw pa. Ang uban tanan naa na sa balay, human kamo ga motor, naa sa palengke,” he said.

During the briefing he also said he will be delegating Secretary Roy Cimatu to handle things here, and that he may visit Cebu soon to assess the situation.

We thank the president for his concern and that he is considering visiting Cebu given the current circumstances, but we also take exception to some of his words.

But first, do we deserve being called complacent? Yes, we do. Look outside, chances are you will still see people out in the streets on non-essential trips, or just hanging out with their neighbors as if we are not on Enhanced Community Quarantine.

In some way Cebuanos pride themselves in being hard-headed when told what to do. This is why the earliest Cebuanos were the first to resist the Spaniards, this is why Cebuanos waged one of the country’s most successful guerrilla operations against the occupying Japanese forces, and why the opposition against the Marcos dictatorship made Cebu their bastion.

Being stubborn is our fatal flaw. Some of us, but definitely not all of us, are partly to blame for the number of cases not going down.

However, we take exception to the part where he says “hinay ang lihuk” (slow to move).

Records will prove that in the face of calamities, Cebuanos are among the first to move and extend aid, you only have to remember what happened in Ormoc in 1991 and Tacloban in 2013 to prove that.

Also, before President Duterte accuses Cebuanos of dragging their feet, maybe he should look to his administration first.

It took his administration a while to ban flights from China and other affected areas for fear of offending our “friend”; it took some time for his administration to formulate and carry out strategies to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Why he even dismissed the dangers of the virus last February, even as other nations were already scrambling to deal with the spreading virus. If he hadn’t dilly-dallied putting up precautions and formulating strategies in the first place, we would not be in this crisis right now.

So was he right in calling us complacent and over-confident? We might have to agree. Was he right it calling us slow to move? We take exception in that and throw the ball back to him.