The Philippines is losing its Battle Against COVID-19 (AN OPINION)

July 09, 2020

After 3 months of strict community quarantine, Philippines finally open its economy. Despite of the increasing COVID-19 cases is the country, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque ensures that we are winning the battle.

On the latest COVID 19- Bulletin of Department of Health, they have recorded 1,314 new cases with 225 new reported recoveries and 0 deaths. Right now, Philippines are having 37,627 active cases higher than Indonesia with 34,668 active cases. Philippines is also one of the fastest-growing active cases in the western pacific based on world health organization which eventually denied by the Philippine government.

UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team predicted that by the end of August, COVID-19 cases in the country may soar up to 61,000 – 95,000. If the country will continue to ease the community restriction without following the safety guidelines, these predictions will likely to happen. The Palace always reiterates that we’re winning against COVID-19. The recent statement of Harry Roque regarding to the prediction of UP in the month of June has gained negative comments. With the 36,438 recorded cases out of 40,000 that UP predicted, he said that we have beat the prediction and then congratulated the country.

The public is starting to lose their trust in the administration. Despite the increasing numbers of confirm cases, testing facilities are still lacking. There’s a poor contact tracing that leads to the late detection of positive individuals and results to further spread of the virus. The health department and its secretary is not competitive enough. Actions from the authorities are not responsive. People in the position that should serve as a role model, violated safety protocols. Filipinos felt that there were no concrete plans.

Instead of fighting the real problem, Anti-Terror Bill, the shutdown of ABS-CBN, and other non-sense actions were implemented during a pandemic.

We’re losing.

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