Entice companies leaving China to move here

There was no question that President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his 5th State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasan Pambansa complex before a joint session of Congress by 2 p.m. yesterday, which was already near my deadline to submit my column.

At this point, we can only hope that the President would bare the government’s recovery plan as the Philippines is facing a health crisis and economic instability done by this pandemic. I really can’t second guess what the President would be presenting in his SONA… for sure he would be giving us what he has done for the entire 2019 and half of the year 2020 which has been stifled by COVID-19.

Cebu City has become the lockdown capital in the whole world with a full four months under lockdown. If the President mentioned the nation’s economic growth, and the contribution Cebu’s economic growth in 2019, he would be telling us a lot of great things… until we entered into this new realm called COVID-19, then things went spiraling downward.

As of yesterday, the latest report in the country is that we have surpassed 80,000 active cases, 26,110 recoveries and total fatalities of 1,932 deaths in the four months we’ve been on lockdown. 400 plus of that number comes from Cebu City. Total cases in Region-7 is 1,440 cases. Meanwhile the total number in the world of confirmed cases has reach 16,055,909 with total fatalities at 644,661 while the total recovered cases reached 9,267,601. Again, I would like to emphasize that the Philippine fatality rate only reached 1,932 deaths in the last four months and for a population of 104 million Filipinos I must submit that this is a very miniscule number.

So at this point in this pandemic game, even if there is still no vaccine to combat the coronavirus, at least we already know the protocols or steps that prevent people from spreading this virus, by wearing masks, social distancing and the washing of hands. I already wrote that the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) should have followed what they have been doing in Taiwan or Vietnam and perhaps we wouldn’t be were we are right now. Just to inform you there were a total of seven deaths in Taiwan, which should tell you that they are doing the right thing in combatting this virus.

Meanwhile, yesterday I had a Zoom interview on my TV talk show with Gov. Zaldy Villa of Siquijor, which is part of Central Visayas or Region-7. In the last four months they had zero infections and zero fatalities. Although they only have 140,000 population, the reason why they had no COVID-19 infections or deaths was due to Gov. Villa’s adherence to health protocols like not allowing stranded residents who live in Siquijor from returning home until this is over. Yes, despite their zero infection rates, Gov. Villa during our interview wore a mask!

Proof of his strict protocols, his only son, Siquijor’s Lone District Congressman Jec-Jec Villa wanted to return home during the pandemic, but his father the Governor refused to allow him to return home or give him a special permit to go home. So in the end, the Provincial Task Force in Siquijor has remained firm on its decision to subject all LSIs, OFWs and APOR to the same protocols, giving exemption only to doctors, medical frontliners and other services essential to Siquijor. While they are exempted from the mandatory 14-day quarantine they still have to undergo a rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) and should test negative before going to work.

So back to the SONA of Pres. Duterte. For the last four months the IATF focused on stopping the spread of this virus… which I don’t think we can do any much better. So today we can only hope that Pres. Rodrigo Duterte would now focus on restarting our ill-fated economy. Remember many overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been forced to return home because there is no work in their host countries… so it is high time we should think for them.

When I had a Zoom interview with Bohol Governor Arthur C. Yap, his recovery plan was to try to take advantage of companies in China that want to get out of there and we should offer the Philippines as an alternative to Vietnam or Thailand. I also heard the same thing from Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez. Yes, perhaps the problem with this is the friendship between the President and Chinese President Xi. But with China losing so many of its world allies, not to mention that great rains that they have been having, which has cause huge flooding in China, many companies want out!