I SAID in a previous column that for all the efforts done by the government i.e. the Enhance Community Quarantine or ECQ, the Social Amelioration Program or SAP to make life a bit bearable in this COVID-19 pandemic, still it does not seem to work. The numbers are still rising. We’re in the Top 3 of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia.
There has to be a very important ingredient or factor missing and that is discipline.
Discipline is the practice of making people obey rules or standards of behavior, and punishing them when they do not.
Discipline is the quality of being able to behave and work in a controlled way which involves obeying particular rules or standards.
Discipline, even just the concept itself, is totally alien to most Filipinos and I need not elaborate on that as everyone know exactly what I mean and in fact are guilty.
Lately, “I Am Iloilo City” Mayor Geronimo Buenaventura Perez Treñas a.k.a. Mayor Jerry Treñas has been seriously considering lifting the ECQ on May 1 which made a lot of the natives ask: Has the good mayor coordinated with other local government units? It would be very awkward if they have different schedules.
Excerpts from the April 21, 2020 issue of Panay News:
LOCKDOWN EXIT PLAN
Gradual relaxing of quarantine rules mulled
The city government hopes to start gradually easing its quarantine measures by May 1. Mayor Jerry Treñas welcomed the inputs of professors from the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV). “This situation is new to us all. We have no experience in this regard so we need all the help we can get from the experts,” he said.
Treñas created an ad-hoc committee to formulate and prescribe policies for the gradual lifting of the enhanced community quarantine. He forwarded to the committee the UPV professors’ proposed lockdown exit strategy.
The mayor said there would still be restrictions on public transport, school classes and religious gatherings, among others while quarantine rules and regulations are lifted in stages or phases.
The UPV lockdown exit plan was prepared by professors Maria Elisa Baliao, Rhodella Ibabao, Hanny John Mediodia, Cristabel Parcon, Juhn Cris Espia, and Vicente Balinas.
“Iloilo City should consider prepping for a phased reopening, and scaling back of the local government unit’s (LGU) support for the economy. The phased reopening is a strategy that will protect the people from the (corona) virus while allowing life to progressively return to normal, albeit a “new normal.”
I seriously doubt if “I Am Iloilo City” is ready for a lift or even a modified, scaled-down ECQ on May 1 considering what has been happening since Wednesday, April 22, the day before Mayor Geronimo lifted the ban on buying and selling of alcoholic drinks with the hope that the natives will just buy their alcohol fix, bring it home, then consume it there.
And the exact opposite happened. The usual drunks decided to bring the party to the streets, breaking curfew minus facemask, and no social distancing. This prompted Mayor Geronimo to bring back the ban less than 24 hours after it was lifted.
It was just a prelude of things to come on May 1 if the ECQ is lifted.
Incidentally, the number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases in “I Am Iloilo City” has gone up to seven and counting with the latest arrival via private plane from Manila over the weekend of someone very influential, very closely related to a former politician.
I have read the UPV lockdown exit plan and so far it looks good, seems to be well-thought of and has constructive suggestions, that is, until I came up on their suggested guidelines for local government units:
* review the border control
* review the composition and function of the border security
One of the reasons why “I Am Iloilo City” has kept the numbers down on COVID-19 positive cases and local transmissions is effective border control. Remember the 100 OFWs coming from Manila that were prevented from coming in and several of them were COVID-19 positive, and the 47 OFWs from Cebu that almost caught Mayor Geronimo by surprise; still because they were quick to respond with testing, the positive OFW from La Paz was immediately quarantined in a hospital.
That was because of an effective border control. If our borders were porous, we would be like Cebu already. So if something works, why change or review? Improve it would be the proper thing to do.
And why will you review the composition and function of border security? Don’t tell me this is a hangover from the pseudo liberal leftists mentality of “medical not military solution”.
For God’s sake, it’s a checkpoint. You need policemen or soldiers to man it, not medical personnel; it’s not a checkup.
A checkpoint is for border security and it is always manned by either policemen or soldiers. The clue there is the word “security”.
ProfessorsMaria Elisa Baliao, Rhodella Ibabao, Hanny John Mediodia, Cristabel Parcon, Juhn Cris Espia, and Vicente Balinas have some explaining to do on these two points raised, otherwise it would be your usual “human rights” nonsense. When in a pandemic, human lives take precedent. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
