"People are in despair."
In the six months that my wife and I have been under quarantine, I have had the opportunity to observe and conclude that there is something missing in what President Duterte is doing about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Santa Banana, the Social Weather Stations poll said that out of the 60 million Filipinos in the labor force, some 27.4 million are out of jobs. This is nearly half of the total!
There must be some policy in government that can mitigate the effects of losing a job. Economic experts say that with so many people out of work, the country could take two or more years to recover.
The President should at least have a jobs policy which would make the government the biggest employer for the country.
I’m not talking here of the late President Diosdado Macapagal’s Emergency Employment Administration where the government hired the jobless to clean streets and do some kind of menial work under the payroll of the government.
Instead, the government could adopt a policy of giving jobs to people to continue with the Build, Build, Build program. This will ease poverty, even if a bit.
I would even say that the reported growing incidence of suicides could be due to the despair of those who have lost their livelihood.
This is why I believe jobs must take priority. People should be assured that their government is there to help. We need to have faith in our government, our President.
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It’s a good thing that Duterte dismissed the move of some of his supporters pushing for a revolutionary government.
Revolutionary government, Santa Banana! Do they even know what it means and entails? It means that democracy is dead, with the President becoming a one-man dictator, with the power of scrapping Congress and even the Supreme Court! Santa Banana, will the people accept such a change in government? No way, Jose!
With the COVID-19 pandemic, a revolutionary government can only be a distraction. People must be united and not divided, my gulay!
I wonder: What is the agenda of those characters proposing a revolutionary government? They are creating a problem bigger than the one they claim to want to address!
It’s a good thing that the Philippine National Police said it does not support the group pushing this. I am sure the Armed Forces will not support it either.
Besides, I also believe that those proposing a revolutionary government have committed an act of sedition as defined in the Revised Penal Code. They could be indicted since what they are proposing is a change of government, which is a seditious act.
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With the opening of public schools nationwide on October 5, Education Secretary Leonor Briones and President Rodrigo Duterte must heed what health experts say about the effects on children of too much exposure to computers.
I’m not saying that distance learning should be totally scrapped. But the use of gadgets must be done in moderation, my gulay!
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No less than 437 local government officials have been indicted in connection with anomalies committed during the distribution of the first tranche of the Social Amelioration Program. Some of these LGU officials partook of the cash subsidy meant for the poorest of the poor.
I don’t know how far the government can go to stop anomalies in times like this. Sending erring officials to prison could be a good lesson to people in government.
Santa Banana, there has been so much corruption that the distribution of the second and third tranche of the SAP would now be through remittance offices! I say this is all for the best.
