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Friday, March 29, 2024

The PNP and COVID-19

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"If we only had the discipline."

Ever since the start of the pandemic, the Philippine National Police has been an integral part of the government effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. In fact, it is not only the police but also the military to some extent. In addition, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease which is the ad hoc government body managing the pandemic is full of high ranking retired police and military officers occupying decision-making positions.

This is because the President believes in the abilities and competence of uniformed people to get the job done. But when it was recently announced that the police will assist in locating the whereabouts of mildly infected people who are self-quarantining in less-than-ideal circumstances to transfer them to government run quarantine facilities, protests were heard forcing the IATF to rescind the order. The foreign media even picked up this piece of news.

The objections appear to center on the now infamous Oplan Tokhang of the government's anti-drug war where many innocent people were allegedly killed. It could also be due to the recently passed Anti-Terrorism Law. Human Right Groups are suddenly suspicious that there might be other government motives other than simply lessening the COVID-19 infection rate. The virus is truly ravaging the country. These groups seem to have forgotten or simply do not want to give any credit to the PNP for performing responsibly and remarkably well in COVID-19 related activities. Because of their work, 1,600 police personnel have been infected. Under certain strict guidelines and supervision, perhaps the police can still assist due to the gravity of the situation. Leaving this chore to civilian officials might not be enough to get the job done. I suspect however, that the police is thankful that they have been excluded because of the difficulty of the work.

If we Filipinos only have the discipline, there would be no need for police involvement in this exercise. But unfortunately, discipline is the one commodity that is sorely lacking. People continue to break simple health protocols like social distancing and the proper wearing of masks. In fact, I was a witness to this behavior last Sunday when I accompanied my grandson to Starbucks to buy coffee. There was a woman who did not want to fall in line, argued with an employee, did not wear her mask properly and refused to fill out contact tracing documents as required. She barreled her way in without due regard to other people who were in the queue. We see this behavior all too often among people in the Metro area who seem to think that the problem is over and behave irresponsibly.

In Japan, all that was needed was a government order and the people followed. Japan also declared a national emergency when COVID-19 cases started to increase last April but the Japanese government did not have to mobilize the police to enforce orders. Because of the discipline of the Japanese people, they followed and the country was able to flatten the curve and eventually reduce infection in a very short time. When a Japanese senior official was asked how Japan was able to make the people follow health protocols with very little effort, he pointed to the Japanese character and the depth of Japanese society.

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As a simple comparison, when we go to Luneta to celebrate the New Year, we leave all our trash in the park when we are done. When the Japanese go to the ball game, they bring their trash with them when they leave the stadium. We still have a long way to go. When our daily infection started to breach 600, Senate President Vicente Sotto remarked that we must be doing something terribly wrong because in spite of all the hard work done, infections are still raging.

It would be easy to point to the missteps of the government as the principal culprit but we must also add the lack of discipline and cooperation of the public. The government to be fair has not been remiss in reminding people to wash their hands, wear masks properly, and practice social distancing. The weak link from all indications are people in areas where social distancing is almost impossible. Finding ways to ensure compliance of health protocols is the big challenge. A recent United Kingdom study found our country second to Singapore in the number of people wearing masks worldwide with 91 percent of Filipinos wearing masks all the time. It is quite an accomplishment but 9 percent of people not wearing masks in the metro area with about 13 million people translates to more than one million people who can infect others. I agree that violators of health protocols should just be arrested outright and fined or both. Simply talking will not be enough.

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