FILIPINOS are not known for following rules—or laws. Take a look at littering. During that freak summer storm, I have been following developments on how RA 9003 that has been legislated back in 2001, implemented with penalties to be imposed on erring LGUs.
Then I read how Bacolod residents complain of clogging the drainage system. I raised these issues ad nauseam. Five months from now, I’m sure we will encounter the same issues again. We never learn from our lessons. As Gary Valenciano crooned, “‘Di na Natuto.”
Now we are facing Covid-19. We have new protocols on social distancing, community quarantine, and orders to stay at home that most countries have adopted. These will require a new form of organization and discipline.
Are we expected to follow suit? Well, it’s a prerogative but are we up to the challenge? Not if the photos of the crowd in EDSA is a measure. The distance from an individual from another is a meter apart. But that has not happened.
An improvement probably is community quarantine. Save for the panic buying, traffic has lightened. But panic buying is something else.
They ignored the call of government doctor who is in the frontline in the battle against Covid-19: Bago doctor Christer Mari Taclobos. Last Monday, this corner featured her call which I like to reiterate here, “Leave some masks, alcohols, tissues and thermal scanners to us, medical professionals, who are at the frontline of this disease. We are humans too and we also have the risk of having the infection. We need to be equipped because we are exposed not only to this virus, but as well as to other infections—whether bacterial, tuberculous, and/or nosocomial in origin.”
Then another story caught my attention. Filipinos better learn from Mickaella Bergantino. A Filipina told Filipinos in her Facebook not to commit the same mistakes they did after the lockdown in Italy, the epicenter in Europe due to the coronavirus disease outbreak.
In her Facebook post, she said most of the residents in Italy did not strictly follow the protocols of the Italian government.
“We have been there. We didn’t listen. We continued to go out and meet people even though we were told not to. We underestimated the situation,” her post reads.
Ms Mickaella reported that unemployment for immigrants is high, even for Italian nationals due to the lockdown. She also urges the Filipinos to follow the rules until the situation gets better.
Italy has currently more than 21,000 cases of Covid-19.