Category: coronavirus

The most meaningful Earth Day ever

Tony La Viña

… The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are resounding in this time of the pandemic. This is why Earth Day this year is the most meaningful ever. Everything we have said could go wrong because of environmental irresponsibility has gone wrong at great economic and human cost. Moving forward, we must abandon outdated notions of cost-benefit analysis and trade-off between economic and environmental interests when what is at stake is human well-being and public health. When an activity or industry can cause a pandemic or global climate change, there is no economic or other justification that can be invoked that allows for that activity. I hope government and business will internalize this now. In my case, never again will I accept any action, law, or agreement that compromises the health of our planet and sacrifices the poor.

In making this commitment, I am aware that I am part of a community of practice bonded together  by love of people and planet. In writing this column, I honor three pillars of that community – Pat Dugan, Jun Factoran, and Sonny Alvarez. All three were great human beings; I owe a lot to them as veterans who walked earlier than me in this fight for Mother Earth. I will write in the near future a longer obituary honoring these pioneers.

In this column, I once quoted Rainier Maria Rilke, the great German poet, who has said it very well: “Everything is far and long gone by. I think that the star glittering above me has been dead for a million years. I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky. I would like to pray. And surely of all the stars that perished long ago, one still exists. I think that I know which one it is.”

I quoted these words of Rilke in a column ten years ago. It is my hope, that because we cared and took action, and especially after this devastating pandemic, that centuries from now, our descendants too would come out and walk beneath the sky and say:  Our planet still exists.

for the record: duterte dilly-dallied #veerus

RIGHTEOUS RAGE
Antonio Contreras

…  the timeline of events is a clear indictment of government’s culpability. As early as February 1, the Philippines saw the first death because of Covid-19, which was also the very first death recorded outside mainland China. Calls were made for a travel ban to and from the Chinese mainland, but President Rodrigo Duterte belittled the threat and his hesitation was mainly due to the belief that such a move might anger Beijing. It is on record that the Chinese Embassy here was at the time busy protesting against any form of travel ban.

It was only on February 14, two weeks after the first death was recorded, that the President reluctantly declared a travel ban. There is evidence, however, that that directive was not enforced completely, as flights from mainland China continued. On February 21, the Department of Health recommended the declaration of a public health emergency. It is, however, notable that the recommendation was dated February 16. Such declaration was only publicly promulgated and entered into force on March 6, 19 days after it was recommended. And it was only on March 12, a full month and 12 days after the first death, that President Duterte declared the total lockdown of Metro Manila, effective March 15.

In short, we practically wasted at least a full month to adequately and meaningfully respond. Some defenders of the government take pride in the fact that we are the first developing country to have issued a total lockdown, as if that should be a source of comfort. But clearly sidelined is the glaring fact that much time had been wasted in not being able to prepare a comprehensive plan. What we heard were the constant warnings that our medical system was not ready without taking the necessary steps to make it ready, procure the testing kits and personal protective equipment, and ready a deployment plan of medical personnel, both active and volunteers. It is unconscionable that it is only now that sports arenas and convention halls are being readied to become mass quarantine areas.

Apologists of the government deflect criticisms by arguing that even other countries like the United States were caught flat-footed. It is ironic that these people fail to cite the experience of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore that showed adequate preparedness, while they cite the US, a country that they love to trash. These are the people who cheered wildly as our President wasted much precious time attacking oligarchs and ABS-CBN Corp., and gave priority to the cancellation of the Visiting Forces Agreement simply because the US canceled the visa of a political ally.

No, this is not the time to forget this dereliction of duty, the sheer myopic blunders. We need to constantly remind those in government of their failures to make them aware of the enormous debt they owe the people. They ask us for sacrifices. Our convenience and comforts are put on hold. Some of us have even lost our livelihoods. They cannot ask us to just move on and heal as one without making them suffer the constant reminders of what their foot dragging, lack of foresight and subservience to China have caused.

And if there is one thing that we should never forget, it should be the culpability of the government of the People’s Republic of China, particularly its leader Xi Jinping and the propaganda machinery of the Chinese Communist Party. We should not allow them to get away with what has become a passive kind of unintended genocide. They may not have planned it, but their sheer fixation on their party’s interest above anything else is now poised to kill hundreds of thousands if not millions. We should not allow them to inflict on us what they inflicted on their own citizens. We should not allow them to distort, massage and manipulate information and the truth. We should not allow them to buy their redemption and our silence through their donations and help. We should seek for reparations, not aid.

duterte’s covid politics

it’s the day after president duterte made us wait almost 8 hours — four o’clock p.m. daw pero halos hatinggabi na nang umapir, pre-recorded pa — for a first report on how emergency funds and powers are being used to address the covid crisis, but shared nothing remotely significant (because still in the realm of promises, except perhaps that tidbit about china warning him the virus was coming and two days later it was here) other than that list of donors, sponsors, led by china, of course, and a lot of generous friends, business magnates, with chinese-sounding names. did he really want us to sleep on that?  so it was good to wake up to this from the ateneo’s poli-sci department.

During crisis moments, the challenge to governments, including our own, is to direct citizen participation towards critical thinking, innovation, and cooperation — not to suppress it. Change will not come from those who govern alone. Crisis governance also requires governments and citizens to be guided by data and not by alarmist or baseless assumptions. Moreover, governments must be strategic in communicating concerns and decisions to its various publics.   

that’s from the 1st of an 8-part Discussion Series Framing the Crisis Conversation: COVID-19 CRISIS AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE / Each crisis carries the potential for structural change published by BusinessWorld. 

it would help the national conversation if government were transparent, and people knew what’s going on behind the scenes.

we all who have nothing better to do would really benefit from knowing what the president and his men are thinking, what’s being planned, short- and long-term, to meet the nation’s needs, the better for citizens to navigate this new world and find our own little lockdown ways of contributing to credible and appropriate efforts.

covid 19 now a pandemic

while i agonize over my own post that’s taking me forever to wrap up, perhaps because as a senior citizen i’m feeling rather pikon–as if aging weren’t challenging enough health-wise, dumagdag pa ang coronavirus–here’s my cousin karen on pandemic-mode in facebook. take care, you all.

KAREN BERTHELSEN CARDENAS. Finally, a pandemic has been declared. So people, let’s get serious now if you have been the lackdaisical it’s just a sipon for the past month. We now have the first local Pinoy death. The Philippine hospitals cannot handle widespread sickness and be overwhelmed by confinement. Italy has been having to make Sophie’s choices. Who can we accommodate, who will be sent home to die? Of course the rich will have the advantage in the Philippines. Which means that if you imagine someone in Payatas catching it, you have a disaster in the making.

Wash your hands. Stay home. Boost your immune system.

Pray if it helps you. But don’t leave it to heaven.