Information and cooperation, not confusion and dereliction
By the time you read this, Metro Manila and some provinces and cities will be a few days into the Modiked Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ), which is supposed to last until May 31, 2020. Until now, people don’t know if the MECQ will be extended. That’ll have to depend on scientific data, and number of people infected in a particular area. Under the Modiked Enhanced Community Quarantine, some industries and essential businesses are already allowed to resume operations, including malls. Unfortunately, veriked pictures which circulated last weekend showed some Filipinos seem to have forgotten the basics of physical/social distancing, with a number of residents trooping to some malls. It’s as if people are already desensitized to the news of people infected with the SAR-CoV-2 virus and people dying because of the virus.
Consider this. Even while till under Enhanced Community Quarantine, and in the middle of a storm, there were some roads in Metro Manila which showed traffic congestion. During the krst day of the MECQ in Metro Manila, some main roads were klled with automobiles and motorcycles. It’s as if so many HAD an emergency and a reason to go out. It appears that a good number of those went to malls; thus explains the pictures of so many people inside some malls. Or, it could have been people just wanted to go out after being inside their homes for two months. I hope that by now, people would have realized the danger of congregating in places with lots of people, and the possibility of them being infected with the virus. In South Korea, a single man was responsible for another wave of infections, simply because he went bar hopping one night and infected several people, who in turn infected people they interacted with.
Make no mistake, the curve in the Philippines is not yet flat. People are still getting infected, and people are still dying. Some people made the misguided pronouncements that the curve is flattening. It’s not. The Philippines now has the highest fatality rate AND the lowest recovery rate in ASEAN. THAT’s scary. It’s a double whammy which, unfortunately, many don’t seem to be able to understand.
And that’s something which I want to point out. Something MANY know, but don’t want to say out loud. There’s so much confusion now. Many don’t know what’s really happening, because there’s a problem with the government’s messaging. The government should do much more to improve messaging. Too many people are talking, and in some instances, they’re contradicting each other. In many instances, they’re talking about topics that’s not within their competence or within their responsibilities…. The result is that people, and even LGUs are in a quandary as to what to follow. In some cases, rules are changed a day after they are announced. Then there’s not much effort to inform the public on the change. Thus, people rely on the one-day-old rule, instead of the rule just announced.
An example was the announcement of cancellation of flights, which was announced just right before the flights were to be cancelled. Cancellation of a local or domestic flight immediately before the flight happens. But for those who take international flights, there are much more things that have to be taken care of, BEFORE you fly out. Then when your flight is cancelled, there are many more things to think of, to adjust to a new flight.
Even in the announcement that some provinces will be under either ECQ or MECQ was done on the eve of the krst day of the extension of the quarantine. It takes time for the provincial officials to disseminate the new rules to the city and municipal officials. It likewise takes time for that information to be effectively disseminated to the barangay ofkcials, who ultimately will be the ones to explain it to the residents in the barangay.
Remember the basic rule of disseminating information. It takes time to cascade rules and guidelines for the residents of the LGU to follow. It takes even more time for the people to be informed of and to understand the new rules. When you disseminate rules to be followed, it’s logical that there’ll be some questions and queries. When people have questions, there should be one answer to a question. Not 10 variances to a type of question, which may lead some to misunderstand the answer/ guideline.
Surviving this crisis is an enormous challenge. People will be better served if there’s less confusion caused by the inability to communicate and effectively deliver a message.