Senate President Ralph Recto said he expects the Philippines to make a full recovery in two to three years after being hit by the new coronavirus (COVID-19).
Confidence, he said, would return once a cure or vaccine is found.
In the meantime, however, he said the problem is likely to linger for two years.
“We have to prepare our hospitals,” he said.
He also cited the need to provide assistance to workers and loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
“[We need to] open the economy smartly. Allow people to start working and to care for their families. Invest in growth areas,” he added.
Recto and Senators Cynthia Villar and Franklin Drilon supported a proposal to allow workers in agriculture, construction and manufacturing to return to work to curb mass hunger, social unrest, and criminality amid a prolonged lockdown in Metro Manila and some provinces.
Villar noted that agriculture comprises 22 percent of workers in the country, 10 percent are in manufacturing and 10 percent are in construction. Construction workers numbered 3.9 million in 2018 and manufacturing had almost the same number.
“Agricultural and construction workers work outdoors in open spaces and are exposed to sunlight, so the risks of them getting infected are much lower, as long as the people practice personal protection measures,” Villar said.
While the agriculture sector is in full swing, she said some allied industries have limited operations or have ceased operations.
“This has displaced food manufacturing workers and limited the supply of food in the market. With the extension of the ECQ for another half a month, we need to intensify food production as well as ensure the unimpeded flow of fresh produce and food products all over the country,” Villar said.
Those employed in construction and manufacturing have also been adversely affected by the lockdown. With the work stoppage, many of them are not only stranded in their workplaces but without any income as well.
“As we all know, workers in construction and manufacturing are daily wage earners who are compensated on a ‘no work, no pay’ basis. They have no source of income while on ECQ. While the government and companies may have extended financial assistance and relief goods, those will not be enough,” Villar said.
Villar said the ECQ should not only be dependent on areas but in industry types or sectors as well.
“We should remember that 70 percent of the gross domestic product of the Philippines is in NCR, Calabarzon and Central Luzon. And if we do not practice partial lockdown in these areas, we lose 70 percent of our gross domestic product,” the senator said.
Conceding the health risks in going back to work, Villar said workers should follow government-implemented health and safety protocols such as social distancing and wearing of face masks. She said employers can also make sure that they comply with those. “They can even provide shuttle services to their employees.”
She said more realistic and sustainable measures should be put in place, stressing that the extended ECQ is already taking its toll on the employment situation of the poor in the country.
She said people are going hungry already and if this is not addressed immediately, people may commit crimes to raise food money.
“Many are willing to risk their lives and get infected with coronavirus, just to provide food for their family. They can be heard saying that on TV and in social media,” she said.
Drilon also said workers must observe social distancing and DOH guidelines and protocols after the resumption of work in these industries on May 1.
He emphasized that 2 million unemployed workers could result in social unrest as the lockdown continues.
“From the economic standpoint, I am extremely concerned of the further damage to our economy by the continued lockdown of the agriculture, manufacturing, and construction sectors,” Drilon said.
He said these are essential industries and the workers in these sectors are mostly daily paid workers who had no income during the six-week lockdown.
“From the health standpoint, those companies in the agricultural plantations, in the manufacturing and construction sectors should have a rapid and mass testing of their workers to determine whether or not they are infected with the coronavirus,” related Drilon.
Recto said the economy should be opened little by little.
But he said employers must protect their workers and consumers by adopting protocols on disinfecting the workplace—by testing, social distancing and wearing masks.
In the House, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said companies with strong internal conditions will likely survive, and may even thrive under quarantine conditions, but warned that these conditions may not be present in many small and medium enterprises.
In a paper titled “The Survival of Enterprises,” Salceda, chairman of the committee on ways and means, enumerated various ways the government can keep companies from going under.
These include cheap loans, credit mediation and refinancing, and bailouts – all part of his stimulus plan in House Bill 6619, or the National Stimulus Strategy Act.
“Any analysis of challenges that that firms and sectors will face must take into account external variables, such as aggregate demand, sector or firm specific demand, and consumer confidence; as well as internal factors like the financial position and structure of the company and its obligations, liquidity and access to credit, effectiveness of management, productivity and firm capacity, digital readiness, and flexibility.”
He added: “Companies with strong internal characteristics are likely to weather challenging external conditions, and do better than others when those conditions ease.”
“What is worrying,” Salceda said in his paper, is that “in that the very enterprises where these characteristics may not be present – small and medium enterprises – comprise 99 percent of all businesses in the country, and employ an estimated 65 percent of workers. Under normal conditions, the external factors that affect these companies are a purely private interest. In crisis conditions where sectors can fall in bulk, the public gains a clear interest in preserving enterprises, even when the taxpayer has to bankroll private interest.”
“Where net cash flow is negative, due to the absence or lack of revenue, but the constancy of cost (remains), (the) government is called to find substitute cash flows, in the form of cheap credit,” Salceda added.
“In simple terms, what the report is saying is that rescuing enterprises from the impacts of COVID-19 is a matter of public interest.”
San Jose del Monte City Rep. Florida Robes, meanwhile, said that COVID-19 testing should be conducted on workers who need to be physically present in their jobs like those in the manufacturing, transportation, agricultural and construction sectors as well as in food processing, warehousing and logistics businesses, among others.
“These workers, who are usually under a no-work-no-pay employment scheme, should be tested first before they are allowed to return to work to ensure their own safety and that of their co-workers and their clients,” Robes, chairman of the House committee on people's participation, said.
With the increased capacity of testing in Metro Manila and other parts of the country, Robes said the Departments of Health and of Labor and Employment, with the help of local governments, prior to the lifting of the lockdown, may conduct the mass testing that will prioritize these workers to enable them to return to work.
“Mass testing has been one of the primary measures being pushed by health experts before a partial lifting of the ECQ is done and since we need to be able to reopen the economy the soonest possible time, priority should be given to those who need to report for work outside of their residence together with the PUMs and PUIs,”she added, referring to suspected cases of COVID-19.
Workers who need not be physically present should be allowed to work from home, Robes added.
“If employees can work from home, they should be allowed to use that set-up until a vaccine for COVID-19 has been developed and widely used. The important thing is we gradually reopen the economy while making sure that we don’t have a resurgence of infections that we are forced to have another period of ECQ.”
Also on Monday, the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, a Quezon City-based think tank, warned against a “back to normal” policy after the lifting of the Enhanced Community Quarantine on May 15.
In a paper entitled “Covid-19 and the Climate Crisis: Towards a Just Recovery,” the CEED cited the links between the degradation of the environment and the rise of zoonotic diseases, or illnesses caused by germs which pass from animals to people.
“The scientific community is united on the causal relationship between our encroachments on natural habitats and the rise of new illnesses. The more we closely interact with species in the wild, the more we are exposed to diseases for which modern medicine is unaware of or does not have a cure. Sometimes, these diseases have the potential to become pandemics, like what COVID-19 did,” said CEED executive director Gerry Arances.
The paper emphasized that COVID-19 may not be the last of the pandemics that will be brought by the coronavirus family, a group which includes the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).