Testing 1, 2, 3…

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

As of 4 p.m. today, the Philippines reports 538 new cases of confirmed corona virus cases –so far the highest jump in a day. There are now 2,084 confirmed corona virus cases in the country, including 49 recoveries and 88 deaths.

Days before this, Department of Health (DoH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire had prepared us for an “artificial rise” in the number of cases as the department improved its testing capacity and reduced its backlog with the addition of more testing laboratories and the arrival of testing kits from other countries.

Since the outbreak began, only the DoH’s Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Muntinlupa has been testing samples of COVID-19. This function was extended on March 19, 2020 to five subnational laboratories that were cleared as testing centers by the World Health Organization (WHO).

These are the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center in Baguio City; San Lazaro Hospital in Manila City; University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health, Manila; Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City; and Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao City.

Also, some 168,000 test kits have arrived in the Philippines:  a donation of 100,000 from China and 43,000 from Singapore, and an importation of 25,000 from South Korea.

The Philippines can now run 1,000 tests per day from the previous daily average of 300, said Health Secretary Francisco Duque last March 30.

Today, National Task Force (NTF) COVID-19 chief implementer, Peace Process Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. says there are plans to carry out “massive testing” of persons under monitoring (PUM) and persons under investigation (PUI) for COVID-19, as well as health workers on the front lines of battling the pandemic.

Widespread testing is crucial in the fight against the pandemic as it allows health authorities to isolate and treat infected people.

However, the country is only just now gaining traction in terms of equipping itself to fight the disease on the medical front. Aside from increasing testing centers and acquiring more test kits, our health authorities also need qualified testing personnel.

This is just about testing. There’s a host of other problems regarding treatment that range from overflowing hospitals, lack of hospital equipment, lack of personal protective gear for health frontliners, etc.

So, testing…1, 2, 3.  We’ve just stepped up to the mike. We aren’t singing yet.

No work, no pay

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the rapid spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

It’s past 3 p.m. before I remember to give our help her salary. I could kick myself.

Poor Fedela must have been wondering if she should remind me about her salary. I know her well enough to say that she may have kept quiet about it, knowing I would have to go out to an ATM to get the cash to pay her.

She confirms it, telling me that I could put it off till my next food run since we are taking care of her needs anyway. I am touched and thank her, but I remind her that while she may not need it for herself right now, she has family members in the province who are not as well placed.

She hesitates, but only for a moment. Now that Cebu Province is under enhanced community quarantine, most of her immediate family members have had to leave their jobs in the city and are now in their home town. No work, no pay.

Two of her nieces, she says, were asked to join a skeletal work force at an export processing zone (EPZ) but the mother felt that the risk of them getting stranded in the city at such an uncertain time was too great. Almost all of the companies in the EPZ have closed shop and let their workers go. Some were given wages; others, food packs; and the rest, nothing.

She also disclosed that several of her relatives work for just one firm manufacturing a popular food pasalubong, albeit in different branches. When the firm decided to close shop for the duration of the lockdown, all of them lost their sources of income. Only some received cash subsidies, the rest got food packs.

Photo taken from Top Gear Phils.

These stories are replicated all over the country. Only the names and the circumstances are different. Latest Labor Force Survey figures put the number of informal sector workers at 15.6 million, or 38% of the total working population of the country.¹ This sector includes ambulant vendors, jeepney drivers, domestic helpers, tricycle drivers, and other daily wage earners.

Some of them have a family member/s who continue/s to provide a basic service at this time, like a bank security guard, supermarket cashier, hospital cleaner, purified drinking water delivery boy, etc. There’s money coming in, but it is not enough to cover for the loss of income from the rest. 

The rest, well...they look to government and civic-minded individuals, groups and companies for help.

When President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire Philippines under a six-month state of calamity last March 16, he allowed national and local governments to access their quick response funds to bankroll COVID-19 interventions.

This is how local government units (LGUs) were able to buy food packs which, in most cases, were distributed a week after the effectivity of the lockdown.

The Department of Social Welfare and Distribution (DSWD) was supposed to follow through with additional assistance. But in its twitter account, the agency reports that “as of 6 a.m., 30 March 2020, a total of P46,638,918.97 worth of Family Food Packs have been distributed by DSWD Field Offices in response to the requests of LGUs for resource augmentation.”

So many barangays are still waiting for those family food packs. 

On March 25, the President signed the "Bayanihan to Heal as One Act," which gives him, among others, the power to give 18 million low-income families P5,000 to P8,000 in emergency cash aid, depending on the prevailing minimum wage in the region.

I was listening to DSWD Director Irene Dumlao being interviewed over DZMM’s special coverage of the COVID-19  Pandemic a while ago, and she could not even give an estimate as to when the agency could start giving the emergency cash aid.

The President’s emergency powers also allow him to augment the budget for the Department of Labor and Employment's (DOLE) Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) and COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP).

Under CAMP, DOLE has P1.3 billion to provide a one-time P5,000 cash aid for about 250,000 quarantine displaced workers. 

Meanwhile, TUPAD-BKBK (Barangay Ko, Bahay Ko) is a P180-million emergency employment program that pays some 18,000 informal sector workers minimum wage to disinfect homes around their area.

All that money looks good on paper. I'm sure it would look even better in the hands of those that need it. Eventually.

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of March 30, the Philippines has reported 1,546 confirmed corona virus cases, including 42 recoveries and 78 deaths.

¹Patty Pasion, “FAST FACTS: What you need to know about PH's informal sector workers”, May 09, 2017, https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/169006-fast-facts-philippines-informal-sector-workers

Let’s volt in!

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

Our youngest sister gave me the idea for the title of this post when she posted a photo of the five characters of the very popular Japanese anime which aired in 1978 on Philippine TV in reply to another sister’s FB post of all five of us sisters in a video call.

Photo: Voltes V Game
FB account

“Let’s volt in!” was the battlecry of Steve, Big Bert and Little John Armstrong, along with Jamie Robinson and Mark Gordon when they would merge their battleships into a gigantic fighting robot.

Today, we “volted in” on FB messenger to chat. Three of us are in different parts of the country while two are abroad, all staying home in compliance with measures to restrict movement and reduce the chances of exposure to and infection of the corona virus disease (COVID-19).

The idea came from the second to the eldest, who lives in the West Coast, and is considered the techie in the family. Of course, she initiated the call and all we had to do was accept the video call.

It was a first for us. Calls using VoIP technology were usually just between two sisters before this.

It was a riot at first. Our eldest kept disappearing from view, all the while muttering that she could not see any of us. When she finally got it right, we found ourselves speaking to her nose.

Then, we notice that our youngest has makeup on. When the ribbing finally dies down, techie sis tries for some sense of order by asking that we give each other updates starting with the eldest.

Our eldest, a.k.a The Nose, decides to show us her food provisions.  We forget the order of conversing after that. Food does that to those under home quarantine, although techie sis says her problem is toilet paper. At this, her third world sisters laugh.

Since I am entering my third week of quarantine, they ask me how strict the guidelines are under the Luzon lockdown and I tell them that movement is restricted, but that I have a quarantine pass which gets me through the checkpoint right outside our village.

Do I get checked? Of course, I do. Only those with a quarantine pass and wearing a face mask gets through. My second time out, I am asked to return home because I am not wearing one.

Our youngest announces she has already applied for a blue pass which will enable her to enter and leave the city. She lives in a town outside the city which closed its borders just yesterday.

Our second to the youngest, who I will describe as our kitchen wiz, notices that youngest sis is outside the house. The signal is weak inside, our youngest explains then circles her house so we can see it from the outside.  As she pans her camera phone, we see her son sweeping the yard then later, another one who checks who she is talking to because apparently, she is talking too loudly.

This is why she’s taking the call in her basement, kitchen wiz says. She does not want to disturb the rest of the household because in the East Coast, it’s her youngest son’s bedtime and the rest are settling down for the night.

Techie sis says her husband has already complained she is talking too loudly, and he appears in the background as if on cue. My voice gets lost in the babble greeting him. She tells him that if he keeps complaining, she will put him under quarantine. This cracks us up.  

I pan my phone so they can see my daughter eating breakfast, but she is too far away to notice the greetings. Instead, hubby shows up to say hi and his ever-enthusiastic sidekick of a dog almost knocks the phone out of my hand.

Since it’s a Sunday in the Philippines, we talk about attending online masses and techie sis shares that she sometimes is unsure about when to stand or sit down or kneel. Kitchen wiz and I look at each other in disbelief. We sit throughout the mass.

At this point, The Nose, who has been disappearing every now and then, says she needs to finish her laundry.

No one had noticed the time, which passed too quickly because we were laughing and unintentionally cutting each other off in our excitement to be seeing and talking to each other all at once. 

We agree to “volt in” the same time, same day next week and end the call. All, except The Nose, who appears to have a problem turning her camera off.

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of March 29, the Philippines has reported 1,418 confirmed corona virus cases, including 42 recoveries and 71 deaths.