Mishandled and poor planning

My province closed their borders for three, almost four months and they have limited the number of COVID-19 cases to less than eight cases. Almost all of them have recovered. It came a time when there were no active cases.

Then one of our senators decided to have a program to help stranded citizens back to their provinces.

In a span of three weeks, our province has ten active COVID-19 cases and still counting.

The program would have been a great idea if safety protocols were followed. Unfortunately, the first batch of people who went back to their provinces were not even tested before they travelled back to the province. This not only happened in my province but other provinces too.

And now, the second batch of those who tried and wanted to go back to their provinces were asked to go to a stadium, have themselves tested, and if negative will be allowed to go back to their respective provinces.

Photo credit: Rappler

This is the situation of those who went to the stadium with the hopes of being able to go back to their respective provinces. Crowded, no physical distancing, uncomfortable and down right atrocious.

How can the national government do this to their fellow men, women and children, in the guise of “helping them” return to their provinces. This has become more of the culling.

Most of those who went to the stadium are those who got retrenched from their jobs and are the poorest of the poor. All they rely now is their luck and the “goodness” of the national government.

I do not blame them. I too want to go back to the province. The difference is I have options, they don’t and they are left in the mercy of this national government.

If you notice, I keep on saying the “national government” and not simply the government. This is because Most if not all of the local government officials are actually trying their best to prevent/ limit the spread of the pandemic in their province. There are local government officials who flat out deny entry to their province because they know that they do not have the capacity to deal with the pandemic in their rural area. There are provinces who never had a single case because they handled it very well and they took care of their constituents by providing food, and safe protocols. And like what I said earlier, they refused entry to their province specially if those who want to enter the province are from red alert areas.

The national government though is a different thing. They are the ones worsening our situation by pursuing this appalling program of Bong Go, Senator of the Philippines.

I read a commentary once (unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the author) that said the Philippines, being a country of islands, would have been in an advantage since some provinces are literally islands away from the country capital. Unfortunately, because of this program, the cases have increased, and has obviously spread to the provinces.

I see no silver lining in this situation. All I can do is help in my small ways the people who are stranded and pray for them.