When COVID-19 was still a fledgling health problem, the government did not do any step to prevent the same. Wuhan, China was identified to be the origin of the dreaded virus, yet from December, 2019, the time when the said virulent virus erupted there to March 15, 2020, the first day of the hard lockdown, flights from China were not prohibited by the Philippine government so as not to displease China, a trading partner of the Philippines, and not to harm Philippine tourism and economy. Such a decision by the government in failing to impose travel restrictions against the Chinese going to the Philippines, had contributed to the proliferation of the COVID-19 virus in the Philippines. Eventually, the Philippine government enforced a strict lockdown for three months to no avail because the COVID-19 cases kept on rising.
The amelioration for the people coming from the government in the midst of the hard lockdowns via the Department of Social Work and Development arrived late, because of this, many people would get out of their homes to satisfy their daily needs, thereby breaking a protocol, which is, “not to get out from their homes within the duration of the hard lockdowns”. Such reprehensible acts from the people themselves, helped spread the virus, and the cases of COVID-19 infections kept on rising.
There were also many dilemmas regarding the distribution of the “ayuda” (government’s assistance in cash and food packs), because not everyone was given aid by the government, since such aid from the state was used by some political figures to boost their image in the next elections. Some politicians made use of the assistance for the people by the government for their personal ends, if not select the ones that should be given the assistance, preferably their political supporters.
There was a clamor from the populace that COVID-19 testing must be done mandatorily by the government, so that the people could be alarmed whether or not they would be tested positive or negative from the virus, yet such a call from the people fell on deaf ears. The government would instead squander money in non-essential projects in the midst of the pandemic, like the pouring of the dolomite sands at the seashore near Manila Boulevard which costed almost four hundred million pesos (Php 400,000,000.00), a voluminous amount of money which could have been used in the assistance for the people in the matter of their sustenance in the midst of the lockdowns.
The Philippine government’s team in solving the COVID-19, known as the Inter-Agency Task Force, is composed of retired generals from the Armed Forces, a very rare occurrence in the midst of the pandemic. The retired generals in this regard are not expected to solve the gargantuan problems contributed to the country by the pandemic because their training is not focused on solving problems like the COVID-19 pandemic. The medical doctors, and scientists would have been given the shots in laying the solutions as regards the COVID-19, since the former is purely a medical problem. The retired generals should not have been given any place in government because they were already retired; they should have instead enjoyed their retirement, and not have enjoyed employment beyond retirement from government service.
Many public figures like the politicians, military leaders, and people who could have been part of the solution with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic broke the protocols to mitigate the same. It is so sad to know that because of some personal motives like winning an election, they commit (on the part of some political figures), thereby becoming the spreader of the dreaded virus, thus, they form part of the problem and not of the solution.
These are some of the many problems that I have noticed on the government's part in not properly addressing the problem of the COVID 19 virus which caused the pandemic. In connection to this, I hereby lay my cards in solving the pandemic in my humble way to wit: 1.)File cases as regards the violators of the protocols IN RE: COVID-19 virus; 2.) The government must conduct mandatory free mass testing; mass vaccination must be done to the tune of one (1) million people daily; 3.) The government must conduct advanced contact tracing by using the modern technologies the way Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan are doing; 4.) Let the doctors, scientists, and experts solve the COVID-19 problem.
