The fault is ultimately with the President

pressure on the medical frontliners and hospitals as they would have just dealt with the more severe and critical cases, which by experts’ estimate is only around 20 percent of the confirmed cases.

Instead of investing in a more systematic and rigorous targeted testing and contact tracing, as well as in implementing more targeted lockdowns, we ended up opting for a blanket, simplistic lockdown of huge swaths of the country regardless of the dynamics of the infection, and its possible impact on economic activity. We now have one of the longest lockdowns in the entire world, and our only contribution is in the evolution of a typology of ECQ, MECQ, GCQ and MGCQ, while we have nothing dramatically successful to offer.

We could have institutionalized contact tracing and enforcement of public health measures not only in local communities but also in workplaces. The private sector should have been mobilized to take care of their own employees, their families and their immediate communities. We could have transformed the entire public health system into a private-public partnership by making business invest in the effort to make their workers, their communities and their markets safe and resilient. We could have provided incentives to companies to engage in these innovative models, and even used this as a prerequisite for them to be given permission to operate.

We could have created economic bubbles that would serve as safe havens and sanctuaries for economic activity. We could have secured these areas as the core from where supply chains for goods and services emanate and radiate. We could have translated lockdowns to becoming tools to enable production and economic activities, instead of undermining these.

There are many lost opportunities, which until now the President appears not to own up to and take responsibility for. Worse, he continues with his nonchalant attitude, and his inability to fully grasp the magnitude of the disaster that is already with us.

He keeps on justifying his actions by arguing that no one was prepared for this, thereby giving the impression that all countries were caught off-guard. This is simply factually incorrect. Many countries, including many in Southeast Asia, came prepared. And now they are rewarded with lower cases and fatalities, something that Interior Secretary Año even disparaged and doubted as probably a lie.

Meanwhile, we can only gnash our teeth as Sen. Cynthia Villar scolds medical frontliners who are now overwhelmed to have more passion while our President seriously advises us to use gasoline as a disinfectant.