Week 6 of the modified coronavirus quarantine

LIFE cannot be perfect, much less during a pandemic. Granted that we are a Third World country with a high-density population and inadequate medical facilities for what is called for at this time, still a bit more humanity, some compassion and respect for our fellow countrymen, need not be swept away by the demands of the pandemic or the other factors that impinge on our national life. Aside from humane solutions we also need critical management skills that can make life in the time of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) less burdensome.

It is disturbing to see people known as locally stranded individuals (LSIs) left to the elements at the North Pier of the Port of Manila because they were abruptly denied passage on the boats headed for their destinations. They had barangay (village) clearances, travel authority and rapid Covid-19 test results, travel tickets and whatever else was required, exceptfor another item that they were not informed about — that they needed to go through swab tests before they could be cleared for boarding. Obviously a last-minute requirement with not a thought given to the consequences of such an afterthought to people who had spent their last peso to return home. Neither was it thought that remedial measures like having the health test done under the circumstances these LSIs found themselves in so as not to cause the calamitous disruption that took place. This is where our authorities faced with a pandemic become so removed from who they are supposed to manage as to make things worse for everyone. It also shows that no thinking-out-of-the-box, a question of managing the circumstances takes place. Those people out in the open, with no choice but to eschew physical distancing will add to the Covid-19 numbers, thanks to our unthinking authorities and their last-minute exigent demands.

Furthermore, it is time for authorities to remember the kind of housing that the slums are known for and why they are epicenters of the disease and figure out what can be done to alleviate the need for staying home in close, unhealthy quarters with too many others. Instead of calling people hardheaded, drunks, pasaway and whatever else contemptible terms they use, which seem to reflect their contempt and indifference simply because they cannot come up with creative quarantine alternatives that would be more acceptable and reasonable for people in slum conditions.

In other words, why are we at war with one another instead of helping each other to win the pandemic war?

The news is dismal outside of the already dispiriting pandemic news. The killing of four unarmed Army intelligence operatives by police in Jolo, with no overt aggression on the part of the victims or questions asked by the perpetrators, the felling of trees in Baguio as developers insist on their pound of flesh from that city.

The attitude of developers with respect to their actions is that they own the land and therefore they can do what they please with it. If necessary, as in the case at hand, using underhanded, surreptitious and dishonest acquisition of permits. How can an undersecretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), who is charged with Muslim affairs, override the DENR of the Cordillera Region overseeing Baguio, to give treecutting permits, environmental compliance clearances and whatever else necessary in the face of the known and accepted fact that Baguio is overdeveloped, its environment is under siege and the city has a moratorium on cutting trees? Obviously, the lure of profits cannot be defeated and there are government officials willing to cooperate in the endeavor. What is necessary in Baguio in this light is an ordinance to forbid further development for a specified period. Baguio has to realize that its sentiments will not be followed by those who put their love for profit ahead. Its only recourse is to enact a law that puts a moratorium on overdevelopment in terms of crime and punishment.

So, we are into another two weeks and counting of the general community quarantine. Transport problems still unsolved. Economy hardly given a helping hand. More overseas Filipino workers stranded or forced to return home to no jobs. People still getting Covid- 19. Put together all of the above and much more that has occurred since March and it all comes down to a scene of ineptitude vis-à-vis what has happened. Ineptitude for a few weeks could have been forgiven, especially if compassion and humanity came with it. But we are going into the fourth month and no qualitative improvement is visible or palpable, though quantitatively billions of pesos have been thrown at the problem. It depicts a dire lack of management skills and an even worse lack of humanity and compassion.

I have to turn to my garden for comfort. The kalachuchis have come up with a welter of new, healthy leaves, so with that tree of the fleeting annual pink flowers that drops all of its leaves and plays dead for weeks before blooming. The narra trees, the mulberry, the cinnamomo are all green and flourishing. Nature takes care of them. We should take care of one another in the same vein.