BY MATÉ ESPINA
WITH THE declaration of Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine, Bacolod City has been at a standstill. Essential businesses and offices are opened but with the ban on public transport, transactions are minimal, prompting the city government, upon the urging of the business community, to appeal the resumption of public transportation.
National Inter Agency Task Force chair, Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. was in town last Wednesday to assess the situation in Bacolod and just advised the city government to write a letter requesting the lifting of ban which he will endorse to the task force as MECQ protocols can anyway be altered.
Public opinion is divided on this matter.
The MECQ was declared to limit the movement of people. The moment public transportation resumes, that objective is defeated.
On the other hand, if jeepneys are not allowed to ply the streets, how else will business thrive? Since MECQ was declared, scores of workers were seen walking towards their workplaces since some businesses cannot even afford to provide them private transportation service.
Bacolod City also failed to reactivate free shuttles from point-to-point which was quite successful during the ECQ period wherein there were scheduled shuttles solely for medical frontliners and essential workers, and another for public use so pass holders can go to the market or pharmacies in batches.
It’s a game of survival and it is obvious that class will play a great role in this because those who have more in life are clearly moving around with ease since private vehicles are seen roaming around.
In the meeting with Galvez, Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry president, Frank Carbon said that “no comprehensive plan” was presented and the business community did not also get a chance to present their concerns, particularly on massive job loss and closure of establishments if the economic issue of COVID-19 will not be dealt with.
Rather, Galvez touted their success in Cebu and urged local officials to put together a plan that will address local needs. Ain’t that cute? They declare policies for the local governments to follow yet they do not have solutions to answer the whys and hows.
Most top guns assigned to combat COVID are from the military, as such, their militaristic approach is very evident and we have seen that in Cebu when military tanks and soldiers were called in to implement the strict lockdown.
The Regional Mobile Force Battalion deployed 40 personnel to help in the enforcement of the lockdown and most of them will be assigned at border controls to regulate the entry of non-Bacolod residents.
Gen. Benjamin Magalong who accompanied Galvez also discussed contact tracing protocols with barangay workers but since the numbers are rising, the police and military here have been tapped to join the contact tracing force.
Bacolod police assigned 47 personnel while the provincial police deployed 326 and another 20 soldiers from the 303rd Infantry Brigade to serve as contact tracers.
Galvez also ordered that all positives, asymptomatic or otherwise, will not be allowed to undergo home quarantine anymore and must be brought to designated quarantine facilities – the public schools.
Before this, for as long as there are clear isolation areas in your homes such as a bedroom with own bathroom, home quarantine was allowed or entire households placed on lockdown for the mandatory 14-day period.
Bacolod said that under the new directive, they will start fetching from their homes the new positives, targeting 100 patients a day, and work backwards from there. With 2,034 confirmed cases now, about 40 percent of which resulted positive in the last couple of weeks alone, we might see our quarantine facilities filling up in a matter of days.
What is worrisome now is how will they address the confinement of minors, especially small children, who tested positive but whose parents were negative. Bacolod Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran’s 9-year old granddaughter tested positive but the adults in their households were negative. Another friend’s adopted child also tested positive but fortunately, she will be accompanied by another adult in the same household who also tested positive and requested that both be placed in one isolation room.
It is not clear whether there is a psychosocial intervention for children in quarantine facilities as nothing has been reported. Being locked up in a strange environment will be traumatic for small children and this was clearly not thought of when the top guns banned further home quarantine even for asymptomatic patients.
Meanwhile, governors Bong Lacson of Negros Occidental and Art Defensor Jr. of Iloilo were unanimously chosen to speak in behalf of Western Visayas regarding concerns against policies issued by the national body which runs counter to what has been set in place.
Major concern is their opposition against the declaration of the NIATF regarding Returning Overseas Filipinos that will no longer be subjected to local health protocols by receiving LGUs. While Bacolod’s cases are mostly from local transmission now, a big percentage of Negros Occidental’s cases, at 732 out of 1,028 are still attributed to ROFs, LSIs and APORs./PN
