Sleeping ‘beauty’ wakes up

By Artchil B. Fernandez

 

At last, after almost ten months of hibernation, sleeping “beauty” wakes up. This is the biggest revelation in Du30’s weekly night show last Monday.

“Alam mo ang importante pala sa totoo lang and I realize now it’s the testing — ‘yung swabbing pati ‘yung test. Kasi mahal, I’m trying to figure out a cheaper way of doing it and I will discuss it with the secretary of health and Gen. [Calito] Galvez, how to come up with a cheaper swabbing and testing kasi magbayad ka mahal lalo na sa airport,” Du30 told the nation.

Turning to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III Du30 asked. “So is there a way that we can spend for all of this testing? Makabili tayo, makamura tayo, kung may pera pa maghanap tayo so that it is actually to me the sacred duty of government to protect its citizens,” he said. “Perhaps our number one problem today is the COVID,” Du30 added.

This is an incredible public admission of the leader of the nation.

Du30 had an epiphany, a “kairos,” a “road to Damascus” experience? What awakened Du30 from a deep slumber is not a kiss from a long-awaited prince. It is the stark, cold, and tragic reality of the Covid-19 pandemic and its staggering cost to the country and the Filipino people. Du30 “realized” the importance of testing almost ten months into the pandemic. He found the value of testing only after 445,540 Filipinos got Covid-19 with 8,701 of them confirmed dead (as of this writing). In Southeast Asia, the Philippines is now second only to Indonesia in terms of the number of cases. The Philippines ranks 27th in the number of Covid-19 cases among 218 countries and territories in the world.

It took the economy of the country to sink or contract to 11.5 percent in the third quarter of the year for Du30 to realize the importance of testing. On the whole, the economy is expected to contract by 9.8 percent this year. Economist Solita Monsod said the economy lost 1.84 trillion pesos due to “errors and omissions of the government” in handling the Covid-19 pandemic. This is the result of Du30 placing the country under enhanced community quarantine for 75 days, the longest lockdown in the world.

The economic slump of the country will continue until next year. In an online forum hosted by the Inquirer, the consensus of economists and investment managers for next year is “the recovery of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) would come in the form of a ‘dirty L’ — resembling a shallow-trajectory checkmark—rather than the V- or U-shaped recovery that government planners were earlier predicting.”

Romeo Bernardo in a Global Source Partners paper co-authored with Marie Christine Tang made this assessment: “Early hopes of a quick rebound in 2021 have since been dashed by business losses and shutdowns, high unemployment and continuing spread of the coronavirus that has made it impossible to completely relax quarantine and distancing rules.” The paper gave this projection: “While government is striving to ‘flatten the fear’ and turn gloomy consumer and business sentiments around to revive the economy, we think it will be a slow ascent for the economy with GDP anticipated to grow only 5 percent in 2021, returning to its 2019 level only by late 2022.”

Hundreds of thousands of infections, thousands dead, and a collapsed economy, this dark reality finally woke up Du30, the deadly kiss that roused him from his siesta. Finally, Du30 understood that had he done the basic three Ts of pandemic handling, things would have been different for the Philippines.

The three Ts are testing, tracing, and treating. When the pandemic broke out various sectors were vocal in demanding that the government conduct mass testing. Instead of doing what was asked, the administration scoffed at the idea. In May, Harry Roque, Du30’s spokesperson ridiculed the public demand and even made false claims about mass testing. “Wala pong bansa sa buong mundo na tinetest ang lahat ng kanilang mamamayan. Kaya nga po mali ang terminong mass testing,” he sneered.

Mass testing is not testing the entire population. It means testing the following: all suspected cases, all individuals who came in close contact with infected patients, all front-line health workers and some members of high-risk or vulnerable communities. Had the administration of Du30 done these, it would have managed and handled the pandemic better. Testing will enable the government to identify the sector and area where the virus is located and the areas and sectors not yet infected. These are valuable information to contain the spread of the pandemic in the general population.

In absence of mass testing, the government is blind to the extent and depth of infection or how widespread is the pandemic. As a result, the government is merely reactive to the pandemic instead of being pro-active. The only solution Du30 came up with was lockdown. He thought locking up people will make the virus go away. Worst Du30 relied on force and intimidation to enforce the harsh lockdown. This militarist approach to the pandemic did not bring the desired result of managing it to the level where its impact on the economy is minimal as well as on the lives of the population.

The country is now reaping the bitter fruit of Du30’s incompetence and ineptness. Unlike our ASEAN neighbors who are able to lessen the effect of the pandemic, the Philippines got its full brunt. This is the difference competent leadership brings especially in times of grave crisis. Du30 was napping, figuratively and literally while Covid-19 is ravaging the country.

Now, Du30 has awakened, realizing the importance of testing to handle the pandemic. “Mas vale tarde que nunca” or “better late than never” maybe Du30’s lame excuse but the country is paying a high price for his incompetence and negligence.

Hopefully, Filipinos by now have realized the value of capable, able, responsible, and diligent leadership. “Sleeping beauty” has no place in a time of deadly crisis.