The world seemed to be taken aback when COVID-19 appeared.

Coronavirus disease
2019 or COVID-19 comes from the new coronavirus that first identified in Wuhan, China,
in December 2019 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). It is believed that
it started at an emerging business hub in Wuhan, China and experienced an
outbreak of that killed more than eighteen hundred and infected over seventy
thousand individuals within the first 50 days of the epidemic (, 2020). Due to the
immense spreading of the said virus, the WHO officially declared it as a pandemic on
March 11, 2020 (, 2020). Several countries like China, Iran, Italy, and the Republic of
Korea are experiencing the greatest number of cases. Prior to this, authorities around
the world started taking precautionary and safety measures like wearing of masks,
sanitizing, maintaining social distancing, and declared lockdowns to avoid the spreading
of the virus (Lab Manager, 2020). Focusing on the situation of the Philippines during the
pandemic, it seems that citizens have a lot of complains about government. The
government had done a series of wrong doings and shortcomings during the COVID-19
pandemic such as the indifference of the threat of the virus, the acknowledgement of other
things rather than the more serious problem, and the corruption.
The Philippines has no exception in this pandemic. According to the Worldometer (2021),
the Philippines ranked 32 on the overall countries who has the most number of total COVID-
19 cases as of January 18, 2021. The genome analysis made by the Philippine Genome
Center (PGC) stated that COVID-19 has entered the Philippines three times. The first wave is
presumed that came from the foreign visitors on January 2020 from China however, it did
not immensely affect the country. The samples collected on March 2020 suggested that the
second wave was triggered from the 440 Filipino crew members and 5 tourists who
returned to the Philippines on February 26, 2020 after spending a month at the cruise ship
namely, M/V Diamond Princess, which experienced a COVID-19 outbreak. The third wave is
fomented by the returning of OFWs and OFs from Europe who were permitted to enter the
country once the ECQ travel ban was lifted at the beginning of June 2020 (Austriaco, 2020).
Prior to this, on March 12, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte declared a lockdown throughout
the country. Additionally, the genomic scientists at PGC stated that the absence of the
sample virus from the Diamond Princess has effectively ceased the spreading of the virus.
This shows that we did not take immediate action when there were sightings of probable
cases that can spread throughout the country. We were too complacent by the fact that the
virus will not damage the country. This also suggests that the declaration of lockdown is
somehow ineffective because travellers who are infected were able to enter our country
and roam around to the public, causing them to infect others. Another case is that foreign
travellers get to leave once their swab test result shows negative. A study published at the
Annals of Internal Medicine (, 2020) found that the chance of getting a false negative result
from a PCR swab test ranges from 67% to 38%, from the fourth day of exposure up to the
present. The study proves that passengers should wait from 4 to 5 days before getting their
swab test result to diminish the probability of getting false negative result. These evidences
clearly imply that improvement of our safety protocols is necessary so that the risk of having
increased total cases would minimize. As the COVID-19 pandemic starts to take over the
Philippines, the total number of cases starts to rise as well. With this, the group of
researchers at the University of the Philippines (UP) stated that the country’s total cases
may potentially reach 40,000 by the end of June 2020 (Sabillo, 2020). Reported to have a
total of 23,732 cases (Worldometer 2021), the UP OCTA group of researchers calculated the
possible number of additional infected individuals (Bonquin, 2020). However, as of June 29,
2020, the Philippines did not reach the expected number of cases predicted by the UP
researchers. Having a total of 36,438 cases, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque exuberantly
threw his fists in the air saying “panalo na tayo” (Merez, 2020). Given by the fact that the total cases
are still rising, his ecstatic expression is misplaced. The acknowledgement was on the verge of their
triumph not reaching the predicted number, and not to the continuous mounting of infected people.
They somehow forgot that we are on the middle of a pandemic and should concentrate more on
how to effectively avoid the continuous spreading of the virus. Due to the eagerness in making the
DENR’s Manila Bay rehabilitation successful, the dolomite sand beach officially opened to the public
on September 9 – September 10, 2020 (, 2020). A lot of people criticized the said rehabilitation, from
being hazardous to being a waste of public funds. Regardless of being rained with criticisms, it still
caught the attention of the public, causing them to flock, just to have a glimpse of the white sand at
Manila Bay (Moaje, 2020). This caused a lot of people to shake their heads in frustration after seeing
the Manila Bay crowded and constantly forgetting about the social distancing protocol. We are in the
middle of a crisis and it’s better to focus more on how to amend the more serious problem. The
most alarming of it all is about the lost 15 billion fund of PhilHealth that is meant to be used for
fortuitous events such as the pandemic. The state-run agency’s former anti-fraud legal officer
Thorrsson Montes Keith believed that mafia members were in charge for this matter (, 2020). At the
situation we are in, there is no room for selfishness and greediness. Everyone is suffering due to our
current situation and it’s better to help each other stand rather than being the cause of the downfall.

When everyone’s life is at risk, we should act accordingly. One wrong move, and all will turn upside
down. At this point, being responsible and disciplined is necessary. From strengthening our safety
measures to obeying and following them, we can reduce the number of individuals getting affected
by the pandemic. If this pandemic lets us stay at our homes, we should also let our minds stay at the
right path so that it will bear rightful actions.