Hunger knows no law

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- Aside from an improvement in air quality owing to the implementation of the 15-day enhanced community quarantine in Luzon, it was reported that crime rate in the country went down by 56 per cent.

This was attributed to people staying inside their houses, so that the commission of focused crimes such as riding-in-tandem killing, rape, murder, homicide, carnaping and motorcycle theft, robbery, theft and physical injury has gone down.

Locking down communities and restricting the movement of people outside their homes, except for buying foods and medicine, was the answer to stopping the spread of the novel corona virus. Social scientists strongly consider this as the solution to making COVID-positive cases more manageable and allow medical workers cope with the emergency.

The other solution is the invention of a vaccine that can be available to the public but reproducing that will take more than 15 months and many have already died from COVID-19 by that time.

The first and simplest solution, considered as primitive that could have been resorted to by communities hundreds of years ago is to kill those infected by the disease or just allow them to die, then burn the virus with the dead person.

Of course, that is the best remedy in the olden times considering that medicine has yet to discover the cure to diseases. In this modern age, however, there is the suspicion that North Korea could have resorted to the simple solution of killing their infected people that is why we do not hear any news from that country. It has not only locked down itself, its leaders locked away all information.  

There has been talks about lifting the ECQ last Monday before President Duterte extended it until April 30. Others suggested government to employ a staggered lifting of the ECQ by implementing localized quarantines, instead of a Luzon-wide extension.

But if the quarantine would be lifted, all our efforts will go to waste as a relapse and resurgence of the virus could be hard to contain. With the lockdown, communities were able to stop the virus by isolating themselves and reducing mobility.

Now that it has been extended, there is a need to double the capacity of quarantine stations, increase the number isolation and treatment facilities, give more efforts in contact tracing, produce more personal protective equipment for frontliners, and start COVID mass testing for the public.

Stopping the spread of COVID-19 cannot be solved by quarantine and physical distancing alone because thousands of people are asymptomatic, and could transmit the virus exponentially, making mass testing more difficult.

It is unavoidable that the ECQ brought consequences such as massive unemployment, loss of livelihood, death and illness of frontline health workers, and the problem of the government to feed its people.

Hence, government must move decisively on how to feed an estimate of 18 million poorest of the poor Filipinos, and maintain the abundance of food because hunger knows no law.

In a situation where there is hunger, the Philippines will experience a resurgence of lawlessness and the reduction of crime rates that was attained during the ECQ as reported will be erased.

            As the deadline for the ECQ is extended, news is spreading like COVID-19 that organizations, LGUs, particularly barangays, are scrambling for their share from the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) ranging from P5,000 to P8,000 per family for the purchase of food and basic needs.

            President Duterte said the money should be distributed to the “poorest among the poor”, people belonging to the vulnerable sector such as informal workers, low-income families or those on subsistence economy and the homeless.

PWDs, senior citizens, pregnant mothers, solo parents and the most affected by the ECQ considering their actual circumstances are included. Pensioners, of course, are excluded.

What confused many is that the “poorest of the poor” in the barangays were already recipients of a cash transfer allotment program that is being implemented under the “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program”, a.k.a 4Ps by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. It aims to get rid of extreme poverty in the Philippines.

But what I understand, as provided under RA 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, a beneficiary already listed with the 4Ps will only receive an emergency subsidy amount, meaning, an additional cash will be given to the person, and not the whole amount, since he is already receiving cash under 4Ps.

Under the law, the DSWD was tasked to make the guidelines for SAP of which additional subsidies will help access food and other basic needs for the most vulnerable sectors, including 4Ps members.

This has to be cleared because overlapping lists of beneficiaries can lead to confusion and possibly, corruption.

Since millions of “poorest of the poor” were already beneficiaries of cash under 4Ps, then the SAP should be shared to persons who are not necessarily described as “poor”, but were seriously affected by the ECQ.

That could be one reason why Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla appealed to President Duterte to include in the SAP those belonging to the “middle class”, which he claimed as an “overlooked sector”. He further described the sector as the ones who pay the most taxes, keep the economy alive and are law-abiding citizens.

True, while the “poorest of the poor” sector needs help, the COVID-19 crisis knows no social class since the virus does not choose its victim. I totally agree, the crisis is for everyone, not just for the “poorest of the poor”.

In answer to Remulla’s appeal, President Duterte said the suggestion to include middle-income families in the SAP is valid, but the government does not have enough money.

In garbled Tag-lish dialogue on TV, President Duterte said government must first consider the stomach of the poor, saying that a human being can be violent especially if he sees his children crying because they have nothing to eat.

The move now is to look for options while seeing to it that the vulnerable sector immediately receives financial aid, otherwise people will not die of COVID-19 but die of hunger.