by Dun Matthew Nofuente | Ikirara
A year and a half have passed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a year-and-a-half-worth of downplaying the virus and its severity through incompetent pandemic action by the Duterte administration has thrusted the Philippines and its people into a biological catastrophe.
In one of the taped messages of President Rodrigo Duterte, he said that “there is nothing really to be extra scared of” and that the “hysteria” circulating among the population is “unwarranted.” He pushed his laxed view on the outbreak further by adding that the virus would go and “die a natural death.”
The pandemic worsened by mid-March 2020. Lockdowns were enforced in the country and multiple establishments either had to close down or lay off some of their employees by April of 2020. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), 7.2 million Filipinos were unemployed by the end of the month which resulted in a whopping 17.6% unemployment rate. This is a large increase in unemployment in comparison to the former percentage of 5.3% in January 2020. Filipinos from the middle and lower classes were left to fend for themselves until the announcement of the Emergency Subsidy Program (ESP) under the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act, commonly known as “ayuda”.
Anomalies with the Ayuda
Under the program, 18 million low-income households became entitled to receive ₱5000 to ₱8000 per month for two months. Two hundred billion pesos were shelled out of the government’s budget to fund this subsidy. Despite being a large sum and a relatively good aid, the proper implementation of the program was blundered.
One of these blunders was that the 18 million beneficiaries of the subsidy program did not have a proper database. To combat this problem, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) handed out forms to the LGUs to collate necessary data for the deserving beneficiaries. Once DSWD collected the information necessary to produce the list of beneficiaries, numerous reports arose that the list generated by DSWD did not reflect the actual amount of families in indeed of ayuda such that some low-income families who were not included in the first tranche of distribution were still not included in the second tranche of distribution, despite the continuous pleas and queries to the department in its press briefings.
As the distribution continued, other problems became apparent such that there was politicking or “palakasan” in the disbursement of the cash subsidy which pointed out 89 barangay chiefs for alleged irregularities in the ESP implementation. Furthermore, the supposed distribution of the money was not followed; the second tranche which was supposed to have been done in May 2020 only started in June 2020.
Variants of the Community Quarantines
Under the pandemic, numerous names and jargons were employed to denote the different community quarantine levels: the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) and the General Community Quarantine (GCQ). However, two new levels were implemented in October of 2020, namely the Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) and the Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ). Further into March of 2021, Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) employed yet another type of quarantine exclusive only to NCR and its surrounding provinces which they called the NCR Plus. Recently, another community quarantine protocol was devised by the government, a type of alert level which was implemented in NCR last September 16, 2021.
It must also be noted that under these different quarantine levels, there have also been different protocols which have caused dissonances for the population in the past one and a half years. There were numerous confusing rules under the said protocols such as the physical distancing in public transportation, despite being suspended, still became a controversial topic wherein the IATF approved the proposal of the Department of Transportation (DOT) which suggested that the distancing should be toned down to 0.75 meters from the original one meter. Another one was the retraction of the IATF’s decision on the reopening of salons because they have “realized’’ that there were difficulties in ensuring that the minimum health protocols were followed.
COA’s Flag Against DOH and the Alleged Misuse of Funds
Last August 2021, the Department of Health (DOH) was flagged by the Commission on Audit (COA) about the multi-billion peso funds that were not accounted for. These were, of course, hastily denied by the DOH by an emotional confrontation led by its secretary, Francisco Duque III. He called out COA and said “Wwinarak na ninyo kami! Winarak na ninyo ang dangal ng DOH!”
COA Chairperson Michael Aguinaldo refuted the emotional claims of the secretary of the said department, claiming that the said audit report made for DOH were all true and correct. Furthermore, Aguinaldo said that state auditors sat down with the officials of the health sector several times and were given no supporting documents about the expenses of the Department of Health. Though, he clarified that there were no reports in the said audit that the money was gone, it was just that most of the transactions done by DOH were unaccounted for, making Duque’s outrage a questionable action.
Roque’s Outrage Against the Overworked and Underpaid HCWs
As of September 2021, the Philippines has logged a record-breaking number of new active cases within a single day, amounting to 26,303 cases and was considered to be the highest one-day tally since the onset of the pandemic last March 2020. Most of these cases were highly influenced by the newest variant to spread in the Philippines—the Delta variant.
The Delta variant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was the most contagious variant of the SARS-CoV-2. The institute said that it was two times more contagious than any other variant wherein it can infect up to five people from a single carrier, unlike the lesser contagious variants which can infect up to two people. Due to fast increments and spread of the virus, the country's health care workers (HCWs) start to walk away from the medical field due to a multitude of reasons.
Some of these reasons are the lack of proper compensation and the delays in salary provision. Other than the said information, the working conditions in the hospitals are also poor. The unheard calls of the HCWs have all piled up and numerous organizations of the health-allied jobs have started to take their rallies into the streets, much to the chagrin of Presidential Spokesperson Herminio Roque.
As the healthcare workers continuously called out for better working conditions and fairer compensation, they were berated by Roque. The spokesperson instigated the healthcare workers present in an IATF meeting that “they have never said anything good about the government response” as he pointed his fingers on the camera. Dr. Leni Jara, a member of the Shape Up to Defeat COVID-19, spoke out against Roque after his statements, calling him out as rude and that he should publicly apologize to the healthcare workers he has just castigated. Furthermore, Dr. Tony Leachon, the former adviser of the National Task Force on COVID-19 said that the country needs better leaders. Despite Roque’s apologies, it is still something to be taken with a grain of salt.
If these people are the ones holding the country’s progress towards freeing itself from the pandemic, the question of when the pandemic will subside still remains unanswered.
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