Wearing masks
THE elaborately-orchestrated nationwide campaign against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) now has a new, if interesting, twist, with President Rodrigo Duterte ordering the arrest of all people not wearing their masks properly.
While everybody agrees that the “arrest order” is needed to address the pandemic, which has killed millions of people across the globe, the government would do well to heed the appeal of a policeman-turned-senator.
The former policeman is Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, who used to head the powerful Philippine National Police (PNP), which is civilian in nature but national in scope, now chairman of the Senate committee on national defense.
It is fair that poor Filipinos who cannot afford to buy masks at this time of economic hardship deserve a chance to obey the rules before they get arrested, he said.
“Before implementing the arrest order…it is but fair and just for the government to provide (masks to those) who don’t have the money to buy them,” Lacson added.
Not all Filipinos, he said, can afford to buy masks because they are busy making ends meet as they continue to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lacson said that “when the government is able to distribute reasonably enough masks, that’s the time it can enforce the rules against individuals who do not wear masks properly.”
Withou doubt, there’s widespread hunger and poverty not only in the countryside but elsewhere because of the government-imposed quarantine restrictions.
“Hindi maka-porma ang taumbayan, kabilang na ang mga manggagawa, dahil sa dami ng mga ipinagbabawal para lang masawata ang pagkalat ng nakamamatay na sakit,” said an elderly.
We would rather that government authorities heed the appeal of the senator from Cavite if we are to help the Filipino people, who are mostly poor and needy, during the pandemic.
