Summary of the Philippines’ Battle Against COVID-19
It all started in January 2020, when the Philippine government had slow response regarding the banning of flights from China, where the virus was first evident, saying that it would be unfair or us to ban flights from China and not from other countries as well. So, later that month the virus—which was formerly known as NCoV—has reached our country.
In February, the first confirmed case of a Filipino was a crew member of the cruise ship called “Diamond Princess” who got quarantined off the coast of Yokohama, Japan. Then later that week the President announced for the military to instill order among Filipinos to control the panic that has risen. In the first week of March, there was a local transmission of the virus in the city of San Juan. DOH Sec. Duque said that it wasn’t their intention to not disclose information to the public but rather, a problem occured in the reporting system. In the following week, the president announced Metro Manila lockdown which caused thousands of Filipinos to struggle in passing through the checkpoints the night before the official lockdown. The entire Luzon was also set to enhanced community quarantine when it was reported to have 142 positive cases of COVID-19, which caused majority of the population to temporarily lose their job, but some worked from home. This issue made a lot of Filipinos worry and demand help about their financial capacity of surviving their quarantine state, because even the reliefs and money given to tax payers will not last . So the president then gave power to the police to make warrantless arrest on violators of the quarantine. In April, news about protests, arrests and shooting were reported. It made a lot of the Filipinos afraid of what might happen because Pres. Rodrigo Duterte said that the military and police can shoot anyone who resists and urges to fight against them as for their safety. There was also a report about a police officer name Debold Sinas, who is the chief of the Philippine National Police's National Capital Region Police Office since 2019, who celebrated his birthday and violated quarantine rules due to lack of physical distancing in the said event. The authorities said that the pictures posted were only “edited” and there seems to be no problem about it, which angered many of the Filipinos for treating the vulnerable poorly while favoring those men in uniforms. From the month of June up to this month of August, news circled around the opening of classes, lack of budget to carry out mass testing, and also looking for solutions to those who permanently lost their job. The battle of the Philippines against COVID 19 is very chaotic since we were not able to take immediate response when it first came here in our country. It is very saddening and frustrating as a Filipino to not be able to do anything to stop this crisis aside from following proper sanitation and procedures, observing proper physical distancing, and also voicing out our opinions about certain issues revolving around us. But I believe, our very opinions can, and will always, make change as long as the government officials and local authorities will hear us out.
