As of last Wednesday, June 9, 2021, the police reported a total of 2,157 persons issued tickets for violation of health protocols in the current quarantine status obtaining in Davao City. Of the violations, most of those apprehended are those not wearing a face mask or face shield and those who just go outside of their residence without essential objectives for their travel.
The apprehensions were mostly in Bunawan and Tugbok quarantine checkpoints. We can only hope that this seemingly religious enforcement of health protocols will lead to effective compliance by the population of Davao City.
We believe that it is only through this equation that the local civil and health authorities will be successful in defeating the upsurge of the deadly coronavirus disease in this part of Southern Mindanao.
We are also hoping that there shall be complementary or similar measures adopted by the other local government units in the whole of the Davao Region. If the other provinces or cities will be complacent and will adopt more relaxed procedures in stomping the COVID rise then there will always be the likelihood the hazards of the virus infection will be lurking in the peripheries of Davao City, no matter what the authorities of the latter LGU will do.
On the other hand, the local health authorities have already confirmed that there is a substantial rise in the new COVID cases on employees in Business Process Outsourcing offices. And this situation has also been admitted by the management of the various BPOs, according to a local television report. One of the BPOs housed in a multi-level building going south of the city has reportedly over 400 of its employees tested positive of the virus.
Without a doubt, this number of incidents in that particular BPO establishment could have aided in catapulting Davao City back into the top five places producing new COVID infections in the Philippines. Of course, the management of the different BPOs is claiming that they are doing the best they could to undertake measures that will deter more new infections. But the question is whether the means they have adopted are in accordance with the standards imposed by the government health authorities?
It is for this reason that we appreciate the move of the local government leaders of the city and the health authorities to call for an immediate meeting with the management of the BPOs to thresh out the inadequacies in the preventive measures against the disease.
Hence, we hope that the meeting will achieve the purpose with which it was called. And we hope as well that the measures to be taken will not deprive the employees of their livelihood or even a part of it, and that at least the output of the meeting will result in a new doable work arrangement that will benefit the employees and the companies so together they can survive in this very critical time.
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A few columns back we tackled the hottest issue of the times other than the daily accounting of victims and the locations of new COVID cases, the looming national and local elections in 2022. We share our prognosis that what the administration is doing at this point in time, specifically the floating of names who are likely aiming or aspiring or being goaded to run for President or Vice President with emphasis on the Presidential daughter and her President father’s tandem could only be a diversionary tactic to draw away the advance flanks being launched by the opposition from the real potential endorsee.
Earlier we mentioned the names of Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark Villar or 2010 defeated Presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro as dark horses for the President’s endorsement consideration.
The other day we had this feeling that we could be correct in our intuition. No less than the President in a live interview on television with Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, mentioned Mark Villar as one of his most industrious Cabinet secretaries in spite of his family’s status in the fortune side. And this was preceded by the President’s statement that there are some in his Cabinet who are worth his consideration but he may only name them when the right time comes.
Then on the same day, Sen. Ping Lacson made a disclosure in the media that he got from one of his loyal friends that an administration undersecretary is reportedly organizing a troll farm in the entire country and is demanding from every district to recruit at least one troll farm member. The objective, according to Lacson, is to start and continue building up the image of Secretary Villar. And he assumed that this could not be for other purpose but his desire to run for President with the administration’s blessings.
Meanwhile, here comes Gibo Teodoro suddenly becoming visible and audible again. And what an auspicious choice of venue to make his comeback in the political scene – Davao City – to greet Mayor Sara on her birthday and to offer himself as her potential teammate if she runs. Then he had himself vaccinated in Davao City creating some kind of controversy because supposedly it was not yet his time for vaccination. The scene was fully covered by media and therefore it became a national issue especially when the opposition started ganging up on Gibo through both the mainstream and social media.
Slowly the head of the cat is out and we are not precluding the possibility of the correctness of our readings of the writings on the political wall.
