Mass testing, who cares?

AS OF TODAY, mass testing and pre-vaccine remedies do not seem to be in the government's priority list of urgent concerns. After two months or on way to 10 weeks, the government is still short of its main task of monitoring, case tracing, testing, isolation and more seriously, on its treatment pr ogr am.

Most provinces don't have biolab testing centers, and some with those

facilities are still non operational; all this despite billions of funds available on their hands.

Statements and overtures on budget problems, of passing the burden to the private sector, of flip-flopping position on anti-covid campaign, on commonly perceived premature return to modified ECQ and GCQ, among others, are manifestations of the state vacillation and indecisiveness.

The government and private sectors admit that at least 40 million Filipinos have gone hungry, lost jobs and faced gross uncertainty during long lockdowns, and more so now.

So who really cares? Or is it possible that government is not really serious about this Covid-19 because after all it is not as serious as other infectious and contagious viruses and diseases like HIV, dengue, tuberculosis, diarrhea, malaria, etc., whose yearly mortality is far bigger and serious than Covid-19? Maybe mass testing is not taken seriously because after all there is no green light yet from World Health Organization who is widely perceived as the mouthpiece of big pharmaceuticals, the Gates foundation, and the global capitalist corporations; these despite the vaccines already developed by some countries like Japan, France, Germany and Cuba.

But why spend and loan so much for purchases of war equipment and other weapons of mass destruction from US and South Korea when our people are dying of poverty and hunger?

Maybe the real enemy of the state is not Covid, but its own people who bear all the brunt of its incapacity and mispriorities.

So, what do they really care for? I feel so sad. I am also in rage for real social change.