A bad leader for Pinoys more to be feared than Omicron

By Alex P. Vidal

“I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes.”—C. S. Lewis

IF Filipinos will make the mistake of electing a bad leader in next year’s presidential election, they will suffer in six years worst than what the Omicron Covid-19 variant may bring mankind for a few months.

We are confident the magnificent medical science is capable of dealing Omicron a mortal blow and exterminating it at the proper time.

Modern medicine can still be powerful than any virus.

Man’s suffering and anxiety from Omicron won’t be permanent, we are so positive.

Medical scientists are now definitely working double-time to save mankind from Omicron, classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “variant of concern.”

If Omicron can prevent Santa Claus from distributing gifts to children door-to-door in Christmas 2021, he will hopefully be back in Christmas 2022; Omicron will come and go.

Omicron can be temporary, let’s hope and pray.

A bad leader will further delay the country’s progress and its consequences will be felt by the people for an extended period of time.

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In the Philippines, if we elect the wrong president and vice president, we will suffer not from pandemic, but an “epidemic” of toxic leadership.

The latest Bureau of the Treasury data on Oct. 29 showed end-September outstanding debt climbed by 2.4 percent from P11.64 trillion in August and jumped 27.2 percent from P9.37 trillion in 2020.

Domestic debt, which accounted for 70.4 percent of the total, inched up 2 percent month-on-month and grew 30.3 percent year-on-year to P8.39 trillion as of September.

Under a corrupt and inept leader or leaders in 2022 and beyond, the Philippines might incur more debts and more economic woes.

When the economy is down, the quality of life will suffer.

Criminalities will shoot upward; a lousy peace and order will further push the Philippine economy into the doldrums, especially if investors will avoid the country and put up their investments elsewhere.

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The arrival of the newest coronavirus variant, first identified in Botswana and South Africa and now reportedly present in the United States, might be bad news, or it might be terrible news—or maybe it’s just a temporary distraction from Delta, according to an article from The Atlantic dated December 1, 2021.

Ultimately, Omicron’s effect on the course of the pandemic will be determined by three factors: its transmissibility; the degree to which it evades our existing immune defenses; and its virulence, or the severity of the disease that it causes, according to the article.

If Omicron turns out to jump between hosts with ease, blow past our neutralizing antibodies, and cause unusually dangerous complications, we’ll all be in deep trouble, it warned.

But it could also turn out to do a lot of other things, with more subtle implications. If Omicron ends up being super contagious, for example, but mild in its symptoms, that might even be a good thing—a perfect variant, just in time for Christmas.

At this point, the article added, living with the coronavirus for years to come is all but inevitable.

In many countries that have had vaccines in hand for the better part of a year, inoculation rates still aren’t close to 100 percent, it further explained.

“Even if every human on Earth gained a degree of immunity from vaccination or infection, the virus could retreat into its many animal hosts, only to reenter the human population in a slightly different form,” The Atlantic stressed.

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We think the May 9, 2022 election in the Philippines will be another neck and neck or down-the-wire finish between two contenders for the president: Vice President Leni Robredo and former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

In the surveys, social media and in the media propaganda in general, Marcos or BBM appears to be unbeatable.

But in our many years of covering both the local and national elections in the Philippines, those who “go up” earlier (in surveys and other forms of mind-conditioning gimmickry) will “go down” as the election proper approaches, especially in the homestretch.

There is a saying that “who is the first shall be the last, and who is the last shall be the first.”

I forgot where did I read this or if I quoted it right, but I think there is some wisdom that must be learned when someone has become overconfident and “overexposed”, whatever that means.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)