DAY 24: ECQ

Yesterday I wrote that my greater fear is not the virus ... but what comes after.  What remains of the world after this purge?  After being locked up for God knows how many months are we going to go back to real time and claim business as usual?  I think not.

When I was doing my Twitter survey about how people felt regarding the quarantine extension, somebody comment that I should not ask an economist  The reasons were valid: we have lost lives ... so many lives these past few months, falling prey to the deadly virus.  But unless we are able to draw concrete plans on how we are going to pick ourselves up from the financial debacle that is taking place, then maybe we would be more of the pathetic victims to be survivors rather than those who were stolen by the virus.

The urgency cannot be put aside.  When all this is over, we will be confronted by a reality which I hope is not as painful as I suspect.  

I do not want to be a pessimist ... nor do I want to be blinded by sunshine songs and hymns of all's well that ends well unless I can figure out a credible, feasible and realistic solution to what I see as problems.  Together with this is the hope that the Greater Powers-that-Be (and I am not referring to God) have plans on how to deal with the economic debris that has become the carbon footprint of the virus.  How many people will lose jobs after this because business may close. Why?  The answer is obvious.

Businesses froze. Literally.  Except for the retail of food and medicine, everything else stopped.  Where I stay ...  only the supermarket and the drugstore are open.  Way down the far side of the service road is a single panaderiya that (thank the good Lord) still provides us with bread. 

Suddenly few of the bank branches are open to deal with your petty cash needs. 

 I have come to realize that I am connected with a bank who does not have an accessible branch so much so that if I need to withdraw I have to travel a far distance.  People my age (oh, yes, the most vulnerable Boomers) are not too enthusiastic to go out of the house to mingle while wearing masks as thick as comforters.  I am only too glad that I have another bank with a branch open nearby.

Forget the ATM machines: by 11:00 AM they are empty.  People may not be going around malls shopping for stuff that they will regret buying thirty minutes later BUT they still need cash for their everyday existence. I realize that some banks do not really give a s--t about their clients in need of money that was deposited or entrusted to their company. So much for customer service.

The problems brought about by the virus and the necessity of the quarantine stripped bare other obstacles we need to face because we were never ready for something with such a large impact such as this.  We never speculated that something like this can really happen because we only saw them in movies like Contagion or Outbreak.

With our bahala na si Batman mindset and that we will cross the bridge when we get there attitude, we were all caught flatfooted and completely discombobulated.  We thought (as we were told by some of our leaders) that this was just a fleeting thing.  Whereas the rest of the world was panicking, we were picnicking.  

What makes matters worse is that the show is not over and we are just about to enter various phases emphasizing the degree of difficulties we have to confront. 

(1) Since businesses froze, no income came into the company coffers but the operational expenses still continue.  

We still have to pay for our office rent for the months we are closed.  And, of course, we have to give our people their salaries (with the option to advance their thirteenth month if they are in tightrope situations) which are all taken from the savings of the company.  Just how much this we could sustain depends on how much we have tucked into our chests, expecting seasons of drought but not necessarily catastrophes of such proportions.

This makes the aftermath the more dreadful scenario: unless there are plans in place for the government and even the private sector to get together and help resuscitate the small to medium size businesses after months of zero income and transactions, then we will go through a period worse than the scourge of the virus.  

It will not be a simple recession but an economic meltdown --- and the first to suffer are the small-time entrepreneurs who depend on their daily incomes to keep their businesses going or the middle level businesses which depend on daily earnings as well to keep them afloat and provide capital.

We shall find this out after the various levels of quarantines are finally lifted in the National Capitol Region and the nearby provinces: we will see the economic damage done to the country, how much money has been lost and which industries will have a much more difficult time to revitalize their operations.  

For instance, no one calculate the financial calamity that hit the airline ... and most of the businesses associated with travel and tourism.  Even as prices for plane tickets are practically giveaways, nobody is still travelling.  This is because of various laws implemented by various countries to contain the COVID19 or because people are not in the mood to take risks to go on out of town or out of the country vacations.

The backlash will last FAR LONGER than a few weeks after the lifting of the quarantine.  Even as we speak among friends, no one is interested in traveling out of the country (for leisure) until next year.  "Mabuti na yung nakakasiguro,"is a common phrase to suggest the underlying fear of getting sick while on vacation in a foreign land. "Hintayin na lang nating mawala ang bee-rus."

(2) The mess that is our mass public transport system now explodes right on our faces --- as well as those responsible for planning, implementing and remedying this major problem.

Even the recent good old normal days, we knew that our public transport system is a glaring problem as to why MetroManila has earned the reputation of having one of the most universally constipated roads on the planet today.  We make a life-changing issue out of traffic but corollary to that is an inevitable fact that we look away from admitting: there are not enough buses, trains, jeepneys, for hire motorbikes, taxis and Grab cars to fulfill the needs of the people of the Metro.

There are the long lines that snake up and down the sidewalks of the MRT.  There is a shortage for cars for rent  vis a vis the plucky taxis that traverse the stretch of EDSA.  And we cannot depend on motorbikes to snake its way through the layers and layers of traffic that clog up our city's thoroughfares and side streets.

Now over and above this glaring, painful and yet unattended shortage, add the need to wean ourselves from social distancing.

It does not mean that if quarantine is loosened that the first thing we do is to dash into each other's arms and give a bear hug to suffocate a grisly.   There is still a need to maintain a certain distance from people until everyone is secure enough to know that the virus has run short of its hosts.

Now as to how social distancing can be practiced in the MRT, LRT, FX vehicles, jeepneys and buses ... your suggestions as to how this can be done with be so greatly appreciated.  So therefore one possible scenario is that even when ECQ commences, public transport will still be limited, insuring that social distancing is practiced.  

Puwede ba let us stop fooling  ourselves that half-occupied buses and jeepneys will actually ply their routes?  The original plan to have only x number of passengers per bus or FX only showed how completely out of touch they who have something to say with those who they are talking about.  Buses, jeepneys, cabs ... they all have what you call boundaries or the minimum amount of money required by the operator from the driver to deliver as earnings for the day. With this revised rule you are actually expecting drivers to ply the same roads and yet earn approximately a little over half of what they should earn daily.  This does not simply make sense.  There is a possibility that they may not even earn enough for their boundaries.

Expect pandemonium in the roads again as there will be a major shortage of mass transport alternatives for the workers who have to go back to the streets to earn their daily wages.

(3) There is going to be a new normal after all this --- and it has got everything to do with human interaction and socialization.

It will take some time before we finally give up using our face masks whenever we go out in public.

As a matter of fact, I will not be surprised if this become a staple of everyday wear for quite some time ... or until the paranoia is over.

That also means we will be selective with our handshakes after which will follow at least twenty seconds of vicious handwashing with soap allowing the lather to disinfect ( sing "Happy Birthday to You" twice, which is the standard measure of the time you kill the germs in your hand) or rigorously bathe your hand with a generous dab of Alcogel.

We shall refrain from the beso-besos as much as possible not unless the other party can be assured that the other party has had his or her test ... or your love for that person is so great that you don't mind sharing his or her ailment as well as being placed in an adjacent hospital bed.  We will be very very conscious of our physical space not to mention the degree of panic we will feel each time somebody sneezes or goes into a coughing fit.

Whether it is allergic rhinitis or a simple cold, anybody who sprays droplets around the periphery of your existence shall be considered the Spawn of Satan.

There will be fear of crowds.  And strangers.  Well, at least for those who would have developed a trauma or a neurosis because of things that have transpired for the past few weeks.  With our country on its way to be the leading Southeast Asian nation with the greatest number of afflicted and hopefully not the fatalities, there is reason to feel queasy and uneasy and to ask ourselves why we are not fairing as well as our neighbors like Thailand or Vietnam.  What is it that we are doing not necessarily wrong ... but not right?  And to that I say, Ask pa ba?

In the meantime, just as we thought that we are near the finish line, hindi pa pala. Understandably so (again).  If we lift the quarantine in ten days, finished talaga tayo.  So what happens between now and the end of the month will define the state of the nation that will be available to us when this is finally but finally over.

No, I am not ending this with a prayer.  I have been praying since last January when they said that it's just the flu.