State of the Nation

The days haven’t been easy; at night, we’re restless, too.

Sometimes, we can’t even tell the days from the nights, not when we’ve been stuck in our homes for four months now.

Work-from-home spares us the agony of being stuck in the hellish Metro Manila traffic, but the lines are blurred between work and pleasure. Zoom calls have become intrusive chatterboxes, made more annoying by the occasional choppy signals.

It’s difficult to go out for supply runs. You have to be dressed to the nines, COVID-19 style — face shields, masks and all. You have to move about with utmost care because one wrong step could get you infected. Leaving one’s home feels like stepping into the war zone.

We wake up every morning checking ourselves to see if we’re still okay and alive. A single cough is now so scary, and so is a rise in the temperature of our bodies.

But these nuances are nothing really compared to the state of our nation today.

These are times, if I may borrow the words of Thomas Paine, that try men’s souls. For how could it not?

Our country is facing one of the most difficult times we will ever witness in our lifetime, no thanks to the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 pandemic.

The economy is weak and it’s going to take a lot before it can recover. Industries are collapsing, and as many as 10 million Filipinos may lose their jobs, says the Labor department. Malls are empty; inside, one can almost hear crickets in the deafening silence.

The state coffers are nearing empty and we now need to sell state-owned assets, so says President Duterte. But that was just a joke, says central bank governor Ben Diokno.

Hospitals in danger zone

Our healthcare system is running on empty, or more appropriately, at full capacity. Government and private hospitals are bursting at the seams, unable to take in any more COVID-19 patients.

Warns the Department of Health: “COVID-19 bed capacity in Metro Manila has reached a ‘danger zone’ with 76 percent of COVID-19 wards occupied.”

But cases continue to climb – now more than 80,000 – putting the Philippines on top in Southeast Asia in terms of the number of active cases.

We also need more ventilators. How can this nation of more than 107 million survive with only 1,400 ventilators on hand?

Amidst all these, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. is mired in shameless corruption. Its very own fraud officer has resigned, citing irregularities such as the state health insurer’s move to make contributions by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) mandatory amid spillages.

Black comedy

The solution? Always wear a mask to protect us from the virus, says the President, and soak it in gasoline and diesel so it can be reused. It’s another joke, says his spokesperson.

But the pandemic, really, is no laughing matter.

This is the sorry state of our nation today – we are facing a pandemic that has severe repercussions on our economy and all aspects of society yet, here we are, so overwhelmed and uncertain of how to get out of this crisis.

The grand speech on Monday gave the masses the kind of tale they wanted to hear – blame the oligarchs and corporations and the telcos for the problems of this country.

I would have wanted to hear more details about the game plan to win the war against this pandemic.

I would have wanted to hear targeted support for displaced workers, including more than 55,000 OFWs who have been sent home so far, and for specific industries on the brink of collapse.

I agree with the Balik Probinsya Program, but I hope there are specific plans on how the citizens would reintegrate in their hometowns. Hopefully, it will not start in a jam-packed waiting station such as the Rizal Memorial Stadium with a military band playing with their wind instruments, which could have spread droplets of the virus in the air, along with Rey Valera’s music.

Where’s the stimulus?

How about the stimulus program? The government is pushing for a supply-side stimulus package, including a reduction in corporate income tax on firms to 25 percent, but what would firms do with the tax savings in these bad times? Would they actually reinvest this into the economy?

UP economist Raul Fabella says: “the best stimulus policy sports both a quick energy boost, but also a lingering boost for sustainable growth. These twin requirements are best met by the scaled-up infrastructure spending as, say, for a new dam. While it creates jobs and incomes now, it also ensures added bulk water and electricity supply for the future.”

I would have wanted to hear more inspiring words, too – something that could have made us a bit more hopeful, such as our government would help us sail past this crisis. We didn’t get much of that really.

So now, days after the grand speech, four months into the lockdown, and 190 days since the virus landed on our shores, we still sometimes feel we’re stuck in a rudderless ship lost at sea, with a captain mostly in his bunker.

We just can’t go on this way, not when we’re facing a perfect storm.

Iris Gonzales’ email address is [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at eyesgonzales.com