No sense of urgency

"Even when a pandemic rages, we are “naka-nganga."

It was in late January of this year when our government officials realized that a viral epidemic had been spreading quite quickly in Wuhan in central China.

The Taiwanese got the danger signals earlier, in December, and on January first, they banned the entry of all flights from Wuhan, and later to include all of China. The entire government machinery was mobilized, with big data analytics keyed in to the genuinely universal health insurance system.

But in the Philippines, on the last day of January, our legislators were asking our health secretary why he had not recommended the closure of our airports and seaports to visitors from China. His reply was not that of a doctor schooled in epidemiology at the University of Santo Tomas with post-graduate studies from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

The reply was more of a secretary of tourism cum secretary of foreign affairs. It might be politically undiplomatic, he said in so many words. Our “friend” China might feel slighted. And then again, there is the matter of tourism. Nakakapanghinayang.

But on February 3, he decided to greenlight the closure of our ports of entry to people coming from mainland China, yet tour groups were allowed to land in Davao and Boracay still. A few days later, as an afterthought, or perhaps upon pressure from some foreign diplomat, he included Taiwan, using his undersecretary to announce the ban on 10 February, because “Taiwan is part of China,” kuno. Upon the protest of this writer, and with the help of many Cabinet members, the IATF lifted the ban on Taiwan, which hardly had any case of the coronavirus.

A month later of course, all such bans meant nothing, especially to our tourism sector. We decided to impose a lockdown, euphemistically labelled community quarantines in varying degrees with hardly understood descriptives. That was the middle of March.

The contagion spread nonetheless, and in the early stages even our medical frontliners were without protective equipment, so many succumbed to the virus, some of our best doctors and nurses even dying.

It was only then that we started importing test kits and PPEs, even face masks. In fact, it was the private sector that took the lead.

No one but no one should accept the delay being on account of procurement laws and its labyrinthine processes. Heck, we were in the midst of a pandemic. People were getting terribly sick and dying. Government had to act with urgency.

We were competing with every other country in the world for test kits, PPEs, ventilators, even face masks. It was only by July when the supply of such needed equipment more or less stabilized, mercifully because other countries donated these to us, both China and Taiwan included. By this time, thousands were dead and the number of cases had reached an alarming 70,000 with a daily average of 2,500 new infections.

And by then, the economy had become paralyzed by the lockdowns and the absence of mobility. Just about the same period, a scandal broke about the state of bankruptcy the Philippine Health Insurance system was into, ironically a year or so after our politicians preened about our health care system becoming “universal.” And who was the chairperson of the PhilHealth, not just in this government but in another, aside from being its CEO previously?

Never mind.

Clinical trials were already being conducted in many parts of the world by at least a dozen pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, from Trump’s US of A to Xi’s China to Putin’s Russia, Johnson’s UK, even Spain, and Germany, and why, even Modi’s India.

Some of these companies wanted to get our country to participate in clinical trials, and in the case of a European big pharma firm, it found our officials either dead cold or contentious.

Then a month or two later, our diplomats upon their own volition started talking to Trump’s Pompeo and their giant pharma Pfizer. Even Moderna of Boston, not a pharma but a biotech R and D company, whose CEO was a friend of a prominent Filipino businessman, expressed interest in dealing with our government.

Well, just before enough Americans decided they had enough of their president’s lunacy, Pfizer announced a breakthrough. Observing the good news while on quarantine in Taipei, I was happy for our country, because I knew we were negotiating with Pfizer.

‘Yun pala, no dice. As our secretary of foreign affairs fitfully cursed last week, “someone dropped the ball”. And so, even as our diplomats were hoping to have the Pfizer vaccine available in January, we won’t be having any. And now we have to dribble the ball again, with the earliest delivery, assuming Pfizer listens to a lameduck and soon to be non-existent US State secretary, by July. Best shot, but not very likely.

And we are the best friend of China, ‘di bala? Then how come Indonesia is getting its first shipment of vaccines end of this month, whatever the brand, Sinovac or Sinopharma? Even Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Cambodia will be getting their vaccines from China by the start of the year. Singapore beat us to the Pfizer ball, and they will start vaccinating their 4 million citizens this month, with even our OFW’s getting the shots for free.

Thailand and Vietnam are developing their own vaccines, but meanwhile, they’ve already purchased plenty from the Western countries.

Oh, not to forget…we have 2.6 million doses of Astro-Zeneca’s vaccines coming in April. But this was a private initiative, privately funded too. After reserving enough for their employees, they will donate to our government, for medical front liners, maybe soldiers and the police.

The private sector took it upon themselves to deal with Astro-Zeneca, because if they were to wait for our health officials — still “nganga.”

That’s why I always describe ours as a benighted land.

Even when a pandemic rages, we are “naka-nganga.” No sense of urgency.

——–

For the record, we recently submitted to some government officials the letter of the CEO of a Taiwan biotechnology company applying to do Phase II and III clinical trials for their protein-based vaccine which will not require sub-polar storage and handling temperatures.

There are two companies in Taiwan actively doing research and development for a COVID-19 vaccine. One of these is willing to enter into a supply agreement with our country, assuming those clinical trials are agreed to go, and the results succeed.

Since this is a health issue, a matter of people’s life and death, maybe our health officials will not be so obtuse as to invoke the “One China policy.”