I CANNOT claim full credit for the title of this column and to be honest I really don’t know who to credit it to.
I must have seen it in passing as I was browsing the internet or maybe it just “stepped out of a dream” but considering the situation we’re in right now and the topics we’ll be talking about, it really fits perfectly.
Let’s start with this one: the House of Representatives adopted the Senate Bill 1418 declaring the existence of a national emergency due to the coronavirus a.k.a. SARS Cov-2 or more popularly known as the COVID-19 pandemic and this bill would give President Duterte additional powers to address the outbreak.
It is good to know that despite the noise, antics and tantrums made by the usual suspects – the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon”, Frappuccino-infused trendy social-climbing so-called millennials – the House of Representatives and Senate came together as one for the people.
The bill, officially known as the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, the law signed by the President on March 24, will take effect immediately after publication in a newspaper of general circulation or in the Official Gazette.
I’m sure the usual suspects and the rest of the idiots were greatly disappointed that the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus were not suspended and there was no semblance, not even remote, to that dreaded “evil” martial law.
Ahay, so the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act is not even remotely anything like a Draconian law that these idiots were squirming about as it is almost a purely financial package giving the President the means to realign budgets, savings and other resources to strengthen and augment the government agencies and frontliners fighting the COVID-19 pandemic because the usual red tape will delay and hinder the much needed resources and financial support.
It also gives the President the power to streamline all government efforts, particularly the Local Government Units or LGUs, to move as one following the guidelines set by the Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19 and the National Action Plan Against COVID-19.
I know you’re disappointed but there’s no martial law; maybe you better wake up from your 48 years of stupor.
On the local front, social and mainstream media have been quite busy with some sort of controversy involving Iloilo representative Julienne Baronda and Iloilo 1st District representative Jannette Garin. I need not elaborate on the details as the whole “peep show” was all over the place and almost everyone who has internet knows all about it.
It turns out that it was, to use a media parlance, “kuryente”. It was more a case of ruffled feathers and deflated egos, plus your usual chismis.
But all’s well and ends well (I hope) as the reason for all that foreplay and lap dancing was to have the Western Visayas Medical Center or WVMC accredited as a COVID-19 testing center and have medical technologists trained and accredited at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine or RITM to man the local testing center.
Really, nobody cares who has the bragging rights to this. If you want to help then by all means do so, but the moment you post it on social media or in a press release then you’re just helping your ego, or worse, you’re doing it in aid of re-election.
I must say this, so far Iloilo City and Province are much better off than, say, Metro Manila. Our leaders Mayor Geronimo and Governor Toto have shown what political will is all about and have acted decisively.
The response of the private sector, particularly the city’s businessmen, have been no less than exemplary. We all have come together for ourselves and our city and province.
The number of persons under monitoring or PUMs, persons under investigation or PUIs and COVID-19 positive is quite low and seems manageable so far. We hope it stays that way.
The Enhanced Community Quarantine or ECQ has so far worked and has kept the numbers down. Take note, people, that this quarantine is to buy us time and to stop the virus from spreading as by itself it cannot move and needs people to move. So with no persons to infect, the virus cannot spread; and if there’s no host, the virus eventually will disintegrate under the heat of the sun.
Finally, we fight as one, we heal as one./PN
