By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
The government is sustaining its battle against COVID-19, but its strategy is starting to pivot, leaning more into saving the bleeding economy than sparing its young and old citizens from the risk of a deadly infection. That’s what I read from its decision to allow the younger bracket of ages 10-14 to go about in public starting next month.
At least, this move is not cloaked in secrecy as the pricing of COVID-19 vaccines for procurement. But by the way authorities choose to cushion words to put it, like “balancing health and economy”, strikes me as ambiguous if not coded.
I get it that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), and the entire Economic Cluster of the Cabinet are pretty much straightforward about their declaration that family spending is critical to jumpstarting the stalling economy. They’ve made no secret of their statistical forecast that in order to revive the economy and avoid a worsening recession, spenders, i.e. parents, should contribute more to the expenditure cycle. And that can only happen if they’re in the company of big consumers — their kids.
DTI Sec. Ramon Lopez is drooling at the prospect — based on their projections — of tripling the retail industry’s sales from its pandemic year-long sorry-state. That’s good news for manufacturers, too, and we’re not out to take that away from them. But here we are, it hasn’t begun yet, and Lopez is already talking about expanding further the age segment allowed to go out to cover those who are five years old up to 75 years old.
This is alongside the Economic Cluster’s lobbying for the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to shift the status of Metro Manila — the most COVID-infected region in the country — to the most relaxed modified general community quarantine or MGCQ.
What is easier to agree with, though, is Malacanang’s press release that kids as young as 10 are now allowed to go out because it is good for their mental health. As Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque says, it’s true that children getting to experience the outdoors is “good for their physical, social and mental health”. I just hope they won’t go as far as confining dozens of kids in a room for face-to-face classes.
Again, if all these are meant to improve the economy, save businesses from closure and workers from unemployment, any objection must be fair. But the voice of precaution should just be as loud, not subdued — like that of our friend from the Department of Health (DOH) who only blares out when fending off allegations of corruption in the PhilHealth or incompetence in managing the government health sector. (Quietly waving at Sec. Duque).
Experts from OCTA Research group are bolder in their objection, grumbling at this government’s policy change as too risky. Besides, this humble corner reminds the IATF that the country is contending with the emergence of a new coronavirus strain. The DOH itself has touted the new UK variant of COVID-19 to be more rabidly infectious than the dominant strain that spread worldwide by 40 percent to 70 percent. In fact, DOH officials said it is “nine times more transmissible” than the COVID-19 that has flipped our lives upside down.
Yes, the economy needs saving, and this policy shift can be the biggest encouragement for business since the lockdown. To this end, though, there’s a tug-o-war consequence with the health of families — the basic unit of society — on the other end of the rope.
I fear that this buildup on one end can be a let-down on the other. Sadly, that’s been the story of this tango between our government and the pandemic.
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