Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III today said Filipinos have to live with 3,000 viruses out there, including the Covid-19 virus and its variants, since these have been with humans, mammals and other animals since time immemorial.
‘’We cannot live to be afraid of all of them,’’ Pimentel said when asked about the new Covid-29 variant even as schools resume starting Monday on a face-to-face (F-2-F) mode and whether the F2F be reconsidered or calibrated.
‘’Also, if we do not allow our children to be educated today and learn, we worry for their future when they become the adults and it is their time to run our society,’’ he pointed out.
The Senate chief fiscalizer stressed that there would also be pandemics and other health emergencies during their time.
‘’Would they then have been equipped with the needed skills and training and critical scientific thinking to be able to deal with their own societal problems and challenges?,’’ he asked.
‘’Time does not come back. Let us not waste it. Our young ones are only young once. Let youth not be wasted on the young. Let our youth experience life to the fullest. And effective age appropriate education and interaction with peers are essential parts of life,’’ he added.
Pimentel emphasized that plenary sessions of the Senate are face to face and only those sick could attend online with corresponding doctors’ certification.
‘’We have relaxed rules on physical appearance in committee hearings. But this is for convenience not because of the Covid virus. Since the use of online connectivity has been discovered and found to be working and convenient but of course nothing beats the efficiency of physical interaction and face to face discussions in legislative work,’’ he added.