SO CEBU City remains under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) until September 7, in the same boat as the cities of Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue. Meanwhile, the province continues to be under general community quarantine (GCQ) “with heightened restrictions.”
I cannot say we don’t deserve the classification. We can’t ignore the facts. Our number of active Covid-19 cases was a high 4,491 as of the other day. Meanwhile, not less than 200 new infections have been recorded daily since August 3, except the other day, and that was perhaps only because it was a Sunday.
I do not know how different the province’s GCQ with “heightened restrictions” is from the MECQ, but it must be less severe than the latter because it was applied to the province only after the governor protested their having been lumped with the three highly urbanized cities.
But are the conditions in the towns and the constituent cities really different from those in the three neighboring cities? Again, the figures, released daily by the Department of Health, do not seem to support that. Active cases numbered 5,707 as of last Sunday in Cebu and the recorded deaths associated with Covid have been in double figures for quite some time already.
I do not think that there is a town in Cebu that has not seen at least one death from Covid. In a few towns, the rise in Covid cases and deaths has prompted their officials to place them under MECQ. Maybe, that is the whole point of the IATF’s downgrade of the province’s quarantine classification: They trust the local officials to do the right thing when a new set of circumstances arises. Sorry about that, Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue.
In any case, we can’t really compartmentalize our campaign against Covid. What happens in any part of the island affects us all. The efforts to contain the spread of the virus and eventually win the war against the pandemic can succeed only through cooperation and coordination. That is not difficult to do, assuming that it is not being done yet.
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I mourn the recent loss of three colleagues in the legal profession: Rex Fernandez in a murder, and George Bragat and Pat Acabodillo to natural causes. The caseload in Heaven must be so heavy, they are now recruiting some of our best lawyers.
George and Pat were acclaimed orators. Between them, they must have won all the oratorical contests in the Cebu collegiate circuit between the mid-sixties to the early seventies. George was from the USJ-R, Pat from the UV. Pat was my fraternity brother. I remember him for his patience and kindness. So will the thousands of his former students in UV, I’m sure.
Godspeed, dear friends.