Opinion-Editorial NEWS

We have in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN ) a tradition of non-interference in the local affairs of our fellow ASEAN nations. Over the centuries, these nations have gone through different historical experiences. Their only common bond, it seems, is that they occupy these same geographical area on the planet.

Everyone is looking forward to the start of the vaccination program in the Philippines. Until it happens, President Duterte said, the further easing of restrictions in Metro Manila to Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) will not take place despite the consensus of Metro Manila’s mayors that it is time for it.

This is one price we have to pay for the return of our economy to normal – high prices for gasoline and diesel which drive our industries as well as our cars.

President Duterte has agreed to boost the confidence of the people in the efficacy of authorized vaccines to provide immunity and protection against COVID-19 by having himself vaccinated in public, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Monday.

In the coming months, there will be need to constantly balance  the concerns  of various interests as we proceed to dismantle restrictions with the gradually improving COVID-19 situation in the country.

It was about this time last year that the COVID-19 was beginning began to spread in many countries after the first case  was  reported on November 17, 2019,  in Wuhan, China.  Cases were reported in Japan, South Korea, and the United States after 21 days;  in Singapore and France after 23 and 24 days; in India, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, and Belgium after  29 days.

After a year of restrictions on business operations and social activities all over the country because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are now beginning to talk of economic recovery. In the last 12 months, the country has been placed under various levels of restrictions, starting with the most restrictive Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila on March 16, 2020.

The Marcos-Robredo election protest case was finally decided last Tuesday, February 16. It has taken four years and eight months  for the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), consisting of all members of the Supreme Court,   to decide the case which was filed on June 29, 2016, but it is the only  big protest  one to reach  the point of a final decision.

The good news is that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management  of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has allowed, starting Monday,  the raising of  the limits on  church attendance in General  Community Quarantine (GCQ) areas like Metro Manila from 30 to 50 percent,   and the  reopening on March 1 of movie houses  up to 50 percent of capacity.

The Senate approved last Monday Senate Bill 1886, to expand the jurisdiction of first and second-level courts of the land with the goal of addressing delays in the disposition of cases due to overloading in certain courts. SB 1886 is a consolidated measure from SB 1359 filed by Sen. Richard Gordon and SB 1353 filed by Sen. Manuel “Lito” Lapid.

United States President Joseph Biden and China President Xi Jinping spoke by phone for two hours last Thursday. It was the first time for the two leaders to speak with each other since Biden assumed the presidency on January 30. That it lasted two hours speaks of the many concerns and issues between their two countries.

The Christian period of penitence, Lent, begins this week with Ash Wednesday on February 17. These are the six weeks before Easter Sunday on Holy Week. Ash Wednesday is named from the rite of placing ashes on the foreheads of participants with the words “Repent and believe in the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III commended the Bureau of Customs on its anniversary celebration last Tuesday. The bureau performed “extremely well” in 2020, he said, despite the difficulties arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Supreme Court, in a decision dated January 28, 2021, affirmed the notices of disallowance by  the Commission on Audit (COA) on  some P204.7 million  granted by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation  (Philhealth)  to its  officials and  its employees in various kinds of benefits in 2007 and 2008 – 13 to 14 years ago.

Since the historic Paris Climate Agreement of December, 2015, many nations around the world have taken concrete steps to carry out its goal of reducing carbon emissions – mostly from industries and from motor vehicles cars – around the world so as to limit the rise in world temperatures that are now melting polar glaciers, raising ocean levels, and generating more and more powerful typhoons and hurricanes.

We already have the Local Absentee Voting Act which allows certain mediamen, police, and teachers to cast their votes early so they carry on with their duties on Election Day. Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rowena Guanzon has now proposed that certain other sectors – People with Disabilities (PWD), the elderly, pregnant women, indigenous people, those who detained in jail — also be allowed to cast their votes in advance in May, 2022.