After nearly 17 months of various stages of lockdowns to contain COVID-19, the government by now should be adept at the orderly distribution of aid to affected communities.
It is unfortunate that the latest aid distribution in areas under enhanced community quarantine has been tainted with politics. Once sanity prevails and the aid distribution proceeds in earnest, those involved in the program during the two-week ECQ must ensure that there will be no repeat of past anomalies.
Several barangay captains and personnel are facing criminal and administrative charges in connection with offenses ranging from corruption, misappropriation of ayuda funds and favoritism in previous aid distribution activities. The list of suspected offenders must not grow longer in the current ayuda program.
Citizens themselves must be vigilant and report possible anomalies. The government must disseminate information and provide hotlines where citizens can report their complaints.
Metro Manila and several other areas were placed under the strictest ECQ to contain a COVID surge attributed to the more virulent Delta variant. The aid distribution must be as orderly as possible, with those vulnerable to infection such as the elderly protected from infection through the strict enforcement of health safety protocols. In particular, physical distancing tends to be forgotten when people wait in long lines.
On the eve of the return to ECQ, there were chaotic scenes of crowding at certain vaccination sites, which health experts fear were COVID superspreader events that could defeat the purpose of the two-week lockdown. Such scenes of bedlam cannot be seen in the ongoing distribution of ayuda. Surely it doesn’t take rocket science to develop an orderly system of aid distribution.
Apart from an orderly process, there must be transparency and accountability in the selection of ayuda beneficiaries. Local governments must make public the list of beneficiaries for proper scrutiny. By now, those lists should already be accurate, with only the truly qualified included. Practice is supposed to make perfect. There is little room for lapses in this latest aid distribution.
EDITORIAL