So what if Bayanihan is coming?

By Herbert Vego

NOW “showing” in Congress is Bayanihan 3. The third “Bayanihan to Arise as One” bill is aimed at cushioning the economic and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

By now, the final House of Representatives’ version (House Bill No. 9411) must have hurdled third and final reading.

Will the final Senate version of the bill pass within the week to beat Congress’ recess on June 5 to July 25?  Time is of the essence, as four versions would have to be discussed and consolidated into one.

Our legislators think that, with a proposed budget of P401-billion, the bill would revive the economy by way of supporting owners and workers of small businesses that closed shop.

Every ordinary Juan dela Cruz would be given a two-thousand- peso (Php 2,000) cash assistance kuno. As to how this could be facilitated minus the usual red tape in this country of 110 million Filipinos, I am as confused as you probably are.

The kindest word about it in Filipino is panakip-butas, reminiscent of the old proverb, “Give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Unfortunately today, we are in such a sacrificial situation where repetitive lockdowns in the past one year and three months have deprived us of income with which to buy fish and other needs. Has it been worth the sacrifice?

Oh, well, all is not well with the Philippines now ranking 24^th among 222 countries saddled with Covid-19 cases. Our numbers as of yesterday were 1,216,582 cases, including 20,722 deaths.

Could there have been more of them without the off-and-own lockdowns or community quarantines?

Perhaps, but “what could have been” is never a reality. Why, could we not have saved both lives and the economy without lockdowns simply by observing basic protocols – masking, social distancing, sanitizing, and handwashing?

If truth be told, the number of our Covid cases pales in comparison to the number of livelihoods lost. The latest conservative estimate reported by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is that no less than 8.7 million Filipinos had lost their jobs due to business closures. Many more are still on the job, but with insufficient income.  If they get sick even of non-Covid diseases, sorry; all we get from the Department of Health (DOH) are scary, daily Covid-19 statistics. And so we have no idea how many depressed and hungry Filipinos have contracted other deadly diseases.

Take it from my barber here in Iloilo City: “I would rather have no Bayanihan law as long as our barbershop stays open. I have yet to hear of anybody getting infected while having a haircut.”

Don’t you agree, Mayor Jerry Treñas?

 

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A NEW PROBLEM FOR OFWs

The China-made Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccine are turning out to be a big problem for our laborers intending or returning to work in Saudi Arabia.

As reported recently, some 283 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) were bumped off PAL’s Manila-Riyadh flight and 120 others were not accepted on the Manila-Dammam flight last Friday.

The incident led to the temporary suspension of deployment OFWs to Saudi Arabia. The latest word is that the suspension has been lifted.

It turned out that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) now requires the recruitment agencies of our OFWs to shoulder the costs of institutional quarantine and insurance coverage premium (3,500 Saudi rials or around PHP47,000) upon their entry. Holy cow!

If it’s any consolation, it’s not true that OFWs who had been vaccinated with China-made vaccines are banned in KSA. In the meantime, OFWs already vaccinated with Sinovac and Sinopharm may enter the kingdom.

Alas, however, foreign visitors (including Filipinos) jabbed with China-made vaccines are already banned thereat. Ay hala! Welcome are those who have completed two doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna, or one dose of Johnson and Johnson vaccines.

To quote a news item from the Saudi Gazette, “The efficacy of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines is not high.”

Without adopting that vague notion, this writer has always opposed the “favored status” of Sinovac in the Philippines, now comprising half of six million (6,000,000) vaccine vials that have arrived. My point is that China should be made accountable for being the source of the pandemic that has devastated the world worse than World War II in terms of lives diminished and lost.

Hooray for the snowballing move in the United States Congress to hold China accountable if proven that her scientists had genetically modified and reproduced the virus in a molecular lab at Wuhan, China.

Instead of boasting about his “friendship” with President Xi Jin Ping despite the nettling intrusion of Chinese ships at the West Philippine Sea, President Rodrigo Duterte should have demanded pandemic “reparations” from China in the same way that Japan did in the post-war years.

A report says that Japan made payments of war reparations to the Philippines for 20 years, from 1956 to 1976, to the tune of US$1.26 billion in cash and equipment for infrastructure projects.

Hai! Amo ‘na iya!

 

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ILOILO BIKE LANES LAUDED ON NATIONAL TV

IN a recent episode of the talk show “Wag Po!” on Cignal TV, hosts Lourd de Veyra, Patrick Paez, Ed Lingao, Manny Mogato and Melvyn Calderon plus a bike dealer/guest commended the government of Iloilo City for constructing “the best” bike lanes in the Philippines.

Mayor Jerry Treñas must have jumped excitedly while passing credit to Don Enrique Razon, chairman of MORE Power, for donating plant pots that separate bike lanes from the roads taken by motorists.

“Our bikers are now given extra protection,” he said. “This initiative has brought more safety to those passing by our lanes while also appreciating the greeneries surrounding the areas. I am very happy with the support we receive in achieving our vision for a sustainable city.”

Happy cycling, JonCab!