“WE CANNOT solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” This is a statement that is said to be Einstein’s. But whoever is the source of this does not matter. It is correct and exactly applicable to where we are right now. Some people’s way of thinking is sick, and it is worse than Covid-19.
We cannot solve the problems brought about by the pandemic if we do not change our approaches. Sadly, the mutation of the virus is faster than the mind of our politicians. The sadder thing is that we have politicians who do not appreciate science and for this reason cannot be expected to provide our needed scientific solutions. The same mind which was concerned with economic losses but did not see that wellbeing would also affect the economy – cannot save the market regardless of whatever grand promise has been made.
Why have we fallen again into the pit? Let’s backtrack and think of those days when things were controllable, but no one thought of looking for advanced solutions. It has been more than a year since we experienced the pandemic but within that span those in power were merely concerned with pacifying people, making sure that the pandemic won’t create more “minus points” against them. Politicians were more concerned with avoiding the catastrophic effects of the pandemic on their plans for the upcoming 2022 elections.
In simple terms then, the “said to be solution” (if ever it was) that was thought of and created in the past months by our politicians was more of a band-aid that merely covered a deepening wound. In fact, what the government did was not to find a solution but to put up a façade that things are fine although they are not. The idea of making things appear okay came from that very same consciousness that brought us to where we are.
What should have been done then? Let’s consider some concrete matters for discussion. In urbanized centers, for example, especially where industrialization is comparatively high, improving public transportation was not studied in preparation for the so-called “new normal.” People, especially politicians, are excellent in babbling about the new normal but they cannot, ironically, make a conscious differentiation between what is new and otherwise, what is normal from what’s not.
When the cases were decreasing, what some local government units (LGUs) thought of – was simply to allow public utility jeepneys (PUJs) to reoperate on the condition that they’d put up some plastic barriers inside. Now, is this helpful? Apparently, no. This is an example of a decision or an act that appears to be a solution – but actually is not. This is a product of that same consciousness that exacerbated the problem. Why were there no serious deliberations as to whether some PUJs should be replaced with larger busses that can ensure better physical distancing and thus lessen the chances of Covid-19 transmission?
We can ask a few questions if only to drive in our point. How about our health centers, how well have they been funded, and have there been improvements made to optimize them as frontline guards against the spread of the virus? Now, we are blaming private hospitals for their inability to manage, but local officials seem unaware that they could have exercised their ordinary powers to create alternative structures or systems within their barangay as mitigating mechanisms should the pandemic strike once more or even much harder.
Our country is problematic. This is not to say that the problems we are facing are not true in other parts of the world. However, we must admit that our governance and leadership are lacking in foresight and more in hindsight. Change in this country would cost millions of pains and sufferings. Deaths have to happen by hundreds or even thousands before people would realize how mismanaged the whole system is by their politicians. Yet some are still in denial and perhaps it would take the extinction of their whole family tree before they’d admit how uncalculating they have been in their approach to everyday life.