WHERE ARE WE GOING?

By Philip M. Lustre Jr. 

WHERE are we going? After more than three months of the most oppressive and debilitating lockdown, or quarantine, or whatever, we could only marvel with sublime frustration at the following:

1.      We have a president, who has been totally overwhelmed by the pandemic aptly called China-Duterte Virus (the virus came from China and Duterte had facilitated its entry by his “Welcome China” policy.) Until now, he has no plans, programs, targets, and objectives, but keep on blaming the people he is supposed to serve. He could not cope with the pressures of his job and the pandemic issues to the point that he has threatened to commit suicide to end everything. (Ituloy mo na lang para wala ng satsatan.) You call it leadership?

2.     We have a health secretary, who is clueless of his job and keeps on blaming his subordinates for his department’s failures. He does not know he is hated right on his own backyard (where else but the DoH) and thinks he is indispensable to the point he has ignored the Senate’s call for him to resign and leave his post.

3.     We have a task force mostly of retired generals, whose approach to the pandemic is largely reactive. All they know is a military solution – arrest here and there, roadblocks and checkpoints, and everything that restrict people’s movements even if they die of hunger, not the virus. Essentially, the task force does not know its job. It has not set targets, plans, and programs. It is budget oriented too.

4.     We have a Congress that has enacted wrong policies at the time of pandemic. It has enacted the Terror Bill without carefully examining the unconstitutional provisions. Certain congressional leaders have been coming out with the most stupid proposals like renaming NAIA. It is budget oriented too.

5.     We have a Senate president, who is a case of Rip Van Winkle, who after sleeping for a time, was surprised to find out that the pandemic was still raging, prompting him to exclaim: “Where did we go wrong?” Clueless and shameless were too tame to describe him.

6.     We have an education secretary, who has not come out clearly on her concept of distance learning. Until now, Deped is not clear on how to implement distance learning, blended, or whatever.

7.      We have a tourism secretary, who stupidly believes that tourism is a way to jumpstart the national economy and that tourists would automatically come to the Philippines despite its projection by international media as one of the worst hit countries.

8.     We have a retired general, who, as troubleshooter of the viral outbreak in Metro Cebu, took a chopper ride to determine the extent of the pandemic, and fielded battalions of soldiers and police officers and tanks and APCs to combat the invisible enemy.

9.     We have a presidential spokesman, who is more of a queef (literally vaginal flatulence but it’s a slang for an obnoxious person). He does not clarify issues, but complicate what should be easily explained.

10.  We have an unimaginative transportation secretary, who is busy selling those China-made mini-buses instead of facilitating public transportation so that affected people could restart their lives to become productive again.

Santambak silang mga basag ang pula.  Dagdagan na lang ninyo.