‘Let’s face it: this has been a mismanaged pandemic response. And you and I, if we care for our well being and those of the people we care for, will need to keep pressing the politicians and bureaucrats, never mind if in the process we piss them off because we refuse to sing Hallelujahs in their names.’
THIS is not a plug for a facial center, one that dots the country’s major shopping malls in major urban centers. Or, should I say, one that used to dot the country’s major shopping malls?
I suppose it is more appropriate now to use the past tense, because “Let’s Face It” the facial center chain, is just one of the many businesses that have fell victim to COVID-19: the branches are now closed, and, I suspect, the once bustling all-women staff now mostly jobless.
When they will resume operations, if they will still do so, is anybody’s guess. With the virus forcing our government to swing from closing and opening our economy, many businesses just find the uncertainty too heavy a burden to bear.
The owners of “Let’s Face It” have chosen to bite the bullet, painful as that must have been.
I don’t think I can say the same for our leadership, especially with regard to the way this COVID-19 pandemic is being handled. I know. I know — here I am again launching my latest tirades against the government, now a staple of this space. But again I will say: our lives are at stake — yours, mine, those of our loved ones and our friends. And as someone who has personally gone through the horrors of having to battle the virus in the emergency room of a hospital, for a time wondering if I would emerge victorious, this has become personal to me.
A few days ago I was chatting with a friend who works in government, and he chided me for my many Facebook posts that have not been kind to the administration. He felt I was “too anti,” but that’s to be expected. Many become sensitive to criticism the moment they occupy a position in government; it seems taking a public post makes you hungry for nothing but praise.
But that is neither me nor the role I see I must play at this time. Others can do the praising, and there are many who are happily paid to do that. I, however, will do the pressing, pressing so that government will not be content to rest on its perceived “laurels” when there is not much to celebrate at this point.
Take the penchant of the Department of Health to release figures that show, for example, an 80+% accomplishment in the rollout of vaccines. They were even boastful of the fact that we are third from the top in ASEAN on this score. But that’s whitewashing the data.
If you look at the data from Oxford University and take into account the population of all ten ASEAN members states, then the Philippines, with the second biggest population at 110 million, comes out as third from the bottom, with only 0.5% of our population fully vaccinated, better only than Myanmar and Vietnam. But don’t even gloat that we are better off than Vietnam: while we have over one million cases of COVID so far — the second worst in ASEAN — Vietnam has only had 3,658, with 2,636 recoveries. Vietnam’s total cases are only half of our daily cases.
(That explains why the sipsips want you to look outside ASEAN, at India.)
But that’s not how the DOH and the vaccine people paint the picture. They want to be praised, not pressed.
Let’s face it: this has been a mismanaged pandemic response. And you and I, if we care for our well being and those of the people we care for, will need to keep pressing the politicians and bureaucrats, never mind if in the process we piss them off because we refuse to sing Hallelujahs in their names.
