Facing problems worse than COVID-19

By Herbert Vego

“CLOSE open,  close open, close open…”

The words come out from a mother who is closing and opening her infant’s hand.  It’s an action-and-word way she teaches her child an ability.

That is also how the government has influenced us. But it’s no fun seeing business establishments bleed while heeding “close-open” in response to  lockdowns that are better known by such initials as GCQ, ECQ, MGCQ and MECQ.

As in the beginning of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic more than six months ago, we are told it’s to “flatten the curve for your own good.”

What’s obvious, however, it that we have flattened the economy instead. We know of business establishments that have already closed for good.

Yesterday, we woke up hearing the bad news that Mayor Jerry P. Treñas was placing Iloilo City under general community quarantine (GCQ) anew  as instructed by Malacañang.  As usual, it’s due to the re-rise of COVID cases.

We can’t blame the increasing number of people for doubting the validity of that reasoning. What if these so-called “asymptomatic COVID-positive” are not sick in the real sense of the word?

I had that question in mind yesterday when I called up Efren Gimeo, barangay captain of Jalandoni Estate, who had just checked out of a 14-day quarantine at St. Therese Hospital (Sept. 8 to 22).

He had tested “COVID-positive” but had never been bed-ridden.

“I was actually suffering from  allergic rhinitis,” he clarified.

Allergic rhinitis is a degree higher than the common cold, characterized by stuffy, itchy, and inflamed nose.

Gimeo admitted though that he felt bad thinking of the less fortunate COVID fatalities who had ended up in crematoriums, since there is no law prohibiting decent burial of the body.

 

The basic warning from the World Health Organization (WHO) is that the coronavirus may only be spread from a person’s saliva or phlegm in the form of droplets entering somebody else’s mouth, nose or eyes. This is the logic behind wearing mask, physical distancing, disinfecting hands with alcohol and washing them with soap and water.

With those precautionary measures in mind, a group of Filipino doctors and other health practitioners known as Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC-PH) — led by former Health secretary Jaime Galvez-Tan – have urged President Duterte to lift all lockdowns.

There must be something wrong with the practice of the Department of Health (DOH) in lumping together the asymptomatic and the symptomatic cases. It is only logical to say that when an asymptomatic patient does not turn symptomatic, then he is not “dis-eased” or sick as he continues to move around normally. And yet his name gets into the list.

While this corner has repeatedly written about COVID, I have always cautioned against allowing panic to becloud our sensibility; it could be worse than the feared disease.

All doctors agree that stress weakens the immune system, which is our best defense against COVID at the moment.

As of yesterday, the Philippines’ share of accumulated COVID cases numbered 294,591, of which only 5,091 or 1.7 percent are dead. If it were true that COVID is incurable, then why have most of them either recovered or stayed alive?

Each life lost is not a welcome news. But why blow the death toll out of proportion? Ours is a country of 110 million Filipinos. With or without COVID, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), an average of 1,500 Filipinos die of various causes daily – or 45,000 per month, or 540,000 per year.

Alternately closing, opening, closing, re-opening and re-closing or limiting patronage in business establishments with no good result is tantamount to repeating the same mistake.

It reminds us of a quotation attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Early in August, Governor Benjamin Diokno of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, remarked that “the worst is behind us.”

Since then, however, unemployment has continued to rise along with COVID-19 cases. The Philippine economy nosedived into a recession during the second quarter of 2020, contracting by 16.5 percent.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua estimates that the COVID-19 crisis will cost the Philippine economy P2.2 trillion in losses this year as firms shed profits while millions of workers lose their jobs and income.

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MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power)  is leaving no stone unturned in upgrading its Iloilo City facilities toward modernization.

It has installed two automatic circuit reclosers (ACR) at Molo Feeder 3 in East Baluarte and Molo Feeder 5 in Dulonan, Arevalo.

ACR is a protective electrical equipment that gives more reliable power to the consumers through restoration of power automatically when there is a line fault; and isolates that line fault to minimize the number of affected consumers.

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ALL 51 former employees of the defunct Panay Electric Co. (PECO) who have found a new employer in MORE Power have no regrets; they are in better hands. They were pronounced “regular” in a surprise ceremony marking their first six months on the job at the Iloilo Convention Center.

An interesting case in point is Alexis Nacionales, 35, a line-testing testing technician who had worked continuously for 17 years with PECO but had never been regularized.

While at work with PECO, he was electrocuted by a primary line and was comatose in a hospital for one whole month. It’s a miracle that he survived well enough to work safer for MORE.

“We have a safety officer who meets with us daily,” Nacionales said. “We are provided with helmet, gloves and other safety gears.”