“The government must ease up on its restrictions to give the working class a fighting chance to survive the pandemic.”
President Rodrigo Duterte doesn’t have to state the obvious. The economy has been doing bad since the first quarter of 2020 when authorities started locking down the entire nation to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The lockdown impaired the mobility of the people, especially workers. It restricted land, sea and air travel, and prevented millions from going to their workplaces. With consumer spending abruptly declining in the absence of workers and students, many establishments were forced to closed down.
The official gross domestic product figures released late last month tell the whole story. The Philippine economy sank 9.5 percent in 2020, despite the shallower contraction of 8.3 percent in the fourth quarter on the prolonged impact of the health crisis.
The biggest contributors to the GDP’s decline essentially summarized the downturn. The construction sector sank 25.3 percent in 2020, while accommodation and food service activities dropped 42.7 percent. The figures clearly show that the construction sector considerably slowed down last year; workers, even if they wanted to, could not go to the job sites because public transportation is very limited.
The same is true with the staff of fast-food outlets and other merchandise stores leasing out spaces in malls. The lockdown has grounded public transportation and prevented many of them from commuting. Thousands of retail outlets as a result shut down their operations because they did not have the personnel to man their stores.
The Philippines’ dismal economic performance, however, is not unique. Almost every nation on earth has experienced the economic slump owing to the raging pandemic. Restaurants and hotels in the US and Europe are protesting severe lockdown measures imposed by their respective governments. Millions of jobs have been lost amid curfews and the forced closures of these hospitality establishments.
Reopening the economy and balancing it with health protocols are probably the most difficult tasks any government has to face. But they can be done. People will ultimately end their isolation and leave their own bubble to resume work, or search for a job. The government, thus, must ease up on its restrictions to give the working class a fighting chance to survive the pandemic.
