WHAT is unfortunate about the response to the Covid-19 crisis of some people in high and not so high places is that they speak, act or not act from a suspiciously political perspective. By political I mean the perspective of the next presidential elections, which call for the use of the crisis to discredit the administration some more so as to get people’s votes in the coming elections.
Thumbing the President down for his way of fighting the drug war is par for the course of the current political golf game. But I must call out as insensitive the way they belittle the efforts of the administration to combat Covid-19. Like, why compare us deprecatingly to Italy that has less people than we have but whose resources far surpass ours? In spite of that, Italy is leaving 80-year-old (and above) patients to die.
And what have the President’s English grammar and pronunciation to do with the effectiveness of his actions? Also why can we not assure people that our Health department is up to the challenge without adding not to mind the President’s lack of knowledge of the virus because “he is only a President?” How political is that?
(For the CPP-NPA and their front organizations, by political I mean the perspective of communist ideology that calls for the distortion of truth in order to agitate for a social condition ripe for revolutionary action. Why else would they force-feed people with the lie that the President is using Covid-19 to declare martial law?)
The extreme left will always play it by an ideology that demands that they take over only via armed revolution. But rightist opposition could’ve scored a public relations coup if they had come out publicly declaring a truce on their current word war with the President and offered whatever they have of intellectual, physical, and financial resources to help in the war against Covid-19.
The action of both left and right opposition can only be understood if seen as coming from a dark political place. This is unfortunate as our main weapons against the virus are discipline and cooperation, two attributes we sorely lack as a people but which the virus could possibly etch indelibly into our culture after the smoke of our battle with it has settled. The virus does not discriminate between yellows, blues or reds, between Christians, Muslims or pagans. Hence, for once, we need to fight it as a people and simply as Filipinos.
I am not saying that the Duterte administration is doing everything right in the Covid-19 crisis. I am only saying whatever is lacking in the counter-measures being taken we should all help to supply. If we can’t, the least we can do is appreciate the work of those who are trying their best in a bad situation.