PEOPLE talk about...
[1] RICHEST PINOYS. Forbes Magazine's annual ranking of the world's richest people keeps former Senate President Manny Villar as the richest Filipino, with a net worth of $5.6 billion or P282.9 billion, followed by ports magnate Enrique Razon, with $3.4 billion or P171.7 billion, and the late mall tycoon Henry Sy and Herbert Sy, with $2 billion each and Harley Sy, with $1.9 billion.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon, with $113 billion, and Microsoft's Bill Gates, with $98 billion, top the global list.
[2] SALE NOT IN MALLS BUT IN 'CAPITOLYO' STORES. Basic goods are being sold at "bagsakan" centers in five Cebu LGUs under the auspices of Cebu Province. The slash though is only 10 per cent, not the huge discounts ("almost 50 per cent off!") often touted by malls during their periodic sale promotions.
In Cebu City, 3 kinds of pass
Check out from these publicized rules on ECQ passes issued by the Cebu City Government that has imposed an "enhanced community quarantine" to combat the corona virus. Do they serve the quarantine's purpose?
Three kinds of passes are honored:
-- one, in hard-copy from the office of the mayor;
-- two, digital, through an individual's smartphone, applied for and downloaded via www.passapp.ph; and
-- three, hard-copy pass from the office of the barangay captain.
By the mayor's order, the pass holder must also present one "valid" ID card.
If one is a worker hired by an "essential" establishment allowed to open during the emergency, he does not need an ECQ pass. He is only required to present a company ID card and a certification from his employee. Crossing borders between a province-component LGU and Cebu City is supposed to be allowed for such "essential" workers per agreement among the three cities Cebu City, Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City. It is not known how Talisay City is actually handling the border flow on its side, having agreed with Capitol on the "exit allowed but entry banned" rule.
Reply to city dads' plea
Cebu City Mayor Edgar Labella's order allowing the digital pass was announced April 6 in response to an April 1 (online) session resolution asking the mayor "to study the possibility of suspending the ECQ pass policy and to explore alternative measures to effectively enforce the ECQ."
The City Council said the ECQ hard-copy pass "would only increase person-to-person contact and waiting times, which would defeat the quarantine's purpose." It noted that other LGUs (Davao, Pasig and Valenzuela) didn't provide ECQ passes as the requirement only creates "chaos and confusion" and poses "a serious health threat" because the coronavirus can survive in cardboards for 24 hours, "another channel for transmission."
To Councilor Alvin Dizon's text pushing the City Council request, Mayor Labella answered on April 3 he would "seriously consider it."
Labella did not suspend the ECQ hard-copy passes, of which 250,000 were already printed. The delay in issuing the passes, coupled with the inadequate number, compounded the problem. The mayor's solution: the digital passes through a household member's smartphone.
Problems of each
The problems with the hard-copy ECQ pass are two-fold: (a) not enough copies to meet the promised one-pass-per-household rule and (b) the card used is a probable means of transmission.
The problems with the paperless ECQ pass are (a) its being prone to abuse as everyone in the household with a smartphone can apply for it, with no or weak control by City Hall, thus enabling more people to go out from lockdown and increasing the chances of infection, and (b) households that don't have anyone with a smartphone cannot get the pass, along with the deficiencies of the app ("quirky," "technical problems").
It is not known how the office of the mayor has dealt with the demerits of the move. Apparently though, it has reduced public noise about lack of hard-copy ECQ passes by approving the digital form and allowing barangay captains to issue a barangay pass (though restricted within the barangay).
Limiting use of pass
As to the problem of more transmission of the virus, that is not quantified and felt until the numbers from an expanded testing would come in.
Whatever the pass, a lot will depend on the enforcers in patrols and checkpoints, how effective they are in limiting out-of-home trips to the essential purpose listed by the inter-agency task force and LGU guidelines.
***
Tell us about it.
[paseares1@gmail.com]